If you’re going to spend two years of your life on something, it has to matter to you; you have to be passionate about it.

The most challenging project I’ve ever done, I think, is every single thing I’ve ever tried to do. It’s never easy.

I need to keep working on myself for a while.

If anything is good for pounding humility into you permanently, it’s the restaurant business.

We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves.

Life’s too short to deal with other people’s insecurities.

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

As a producer, as a CEO of Hartbeat Productions, I am making deals to put my company in place to win, to put my staff to work so that while all this stuff is going on, they’re in the kitchen cooking. So it’s understanding the longevity of the entertainment business; you get out of it what you put into it.

It is really very important while you are young to live in an environment in which there is no fear. Most of us, as we grow older, become frightened; we are afraid of living, afraid of losing a job, afraid of tradition, afraid of what the neighbours, or what the wife or husband would say, afraid of death.

A lot of people like to do certain things, but they’re not that good at it. Keep going through the things that you like to do, until you find something that you actually seem to be extremely good at. It can be anything.

I’m just like you – I want to be a good human being. I’m doing my best, and I’m working at it. And I’m trying to be a Christian. I’m always amazed when people walk up to me and say, ‚I’m a Christian.‘ I always think, ‚Already? You’ve already got it?‘ I’m working at it. And at my age, I’ll still be working at it at 96.

These are the soul’s changes. I don’t believe in ageing. I believe in forever altering one’s aspect to the sun. Hence my optimism.

Do something everyday for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.

You will never fulfill your destiny doing work you despise.

I lived a sloppy life. So I took very small increments in my life. I started making my bed. I started cleaning my room. There were dishes in the sink. It started off with doing small house chores. I saw that the yard needed to be mowed. So instead of being told it needed to be mowed, I would mow it.

To know oneself, one should assert oneself.

The way is long if one follows precepts, but short… if one follows patterns.

I used to feel unsafe right in the moment of an accomplishment – I felt the ground fall from under my feet because this could be the end. And even now, while everyone is celebrating, I’m on to the next thing. I don’t want to get lost in this big cushion of success.

I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.

I just am committed wholeheartedly to theatre with no intermission.

Jiro Ono serves Edo-style traditional sushi, the same 20 or 30 pieces he’s been making his whole life, and he’s still unsatisfied with the quality and every day wakes up and trains to make the best. And that is as close to a religious experience in food as one is likely to get.

Within all of us is a divine capacity to manifest and attract all that we need and desire.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

The strongest influences in my life and my work are always whomever I love. Whomever I love and am with most of the time, or whomever I remember most vividly. I think that’s true of everyone, don’t you?

I know that I always wanted things. I was always proud of my people, proud of my home, but I always wanted more. I think most people do.

God enters by a private door into every individual.

It’s a philosophy of life. A practice. If you do this, something will change, what will change is that you will change, your life will change, and if you can change you, you can perhaps change the world.

People make jokes about my bosoms, why don’t they look underneath the breasts at the heart? It’s obvious I’ve got big ones and if people want to assume they’re not mine, then let them.

You can either be a host to God, or a hostage to your ego. It’s your call.

Why regret anything? Where does it get you to regret anything you’ve ever done in your life? It gets you nowhere. It’s a pathetic emotion that you can wallow in.

In terms of doing work and in terms of learning and evolving as a person, you just grow more when you get more people’s perspectives… I really try and live the mission of the company and… keep everything else in my life extremely simple.

Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.

For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.

People say ‚I want to be rich‘. The question is, ‚Are you willing to do what it takes?‘

I never wanted to be a scientist per se. I wanted to be a naturalist.

The greatest mistake you can make in life is continually fearing that you’ll make one.

I’m not arrogant enough to look back on my career and criticize my choices. It’s really not my place.

Mad or glad, Mr. Reagan is head over heels in love with Mrs. Reagan and can’t even imagine a world without her – He loves her.

Every night on the court I give my all, and if I’m not giving 100 percent, I criticize myself.

On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit.

I stopped doing drugs when I was 20. I was finished with drugs before Nirvana even started.

The design of the Mac wasn’t what it looked like, although that was part of it. Primarily, it was how it worked. To design something really well, you have to get it. You have to really grok what it’s all about. It takes a passionate commitment to really thoroughly understand something, chew it up, not just quickly swallow it.

Writing is my love. If you love something, you find a lot of time. I write for two hours a day, usually starting at midnight; at times, I start at 11.

I grew up in a funny way.

I know you’ve heard it a thousand times before. But it’s true – hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don’t love something, then don’t do it.

One of the most important decisions you’ll ever make is choosing the kind of universe you exist in: is it helpful and supportive or hostile and unsupportive? Your answer to this question will make all the difference in terms of how you live your life and what kind of Divine assistance you attract.

As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.

You cannot let where you are today cause you to get stuck. I’m going to be my best right now. That’s what faith is all about.

She never envisioned a legal career for me, but she did think it was very important that I be able to support myself, and I think she would be pleased to see what has become of me.

If I made a commitment, I stood by that commitment – and try to make it real. Because when you become leaders, the most important thing you have is your word, your trust. That’s where respect comes from.

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else – God is in this person’s life. You can – you must – try to seek God in every human life.

My ‚fear‘ is my substance, and probably the best part of me.

I have surrounded myself with very smart people.

Things do not change; we change.

I’ll assure you this: I will have nothing to do with politics.

None of the records I make are ever a deliberate construction – they’re always an expression of who I am at the time and where I am in my life.

Dispassionate objectivity is itself a passion, for the real and for the truth.

I would rather make my name than inherit it.

You have people come into your life shockingly and surprisingly. You have losses that you never thought you’d experience. You have rejection and you have learn how to deal with that and how to get up the next day and go on with it.

I’ve always done whatever I want and always been exactly who I am.