In pop music, the public usually see the results – the hit records, the Grammy Awards performances, the concert tours – but not all the work that goes into getting into the spotlight. And not everyone realizes that, even if you have a lot of talent, chances are you won’t make it.

Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.

My dad always said, ‚Champ, the measure of a man is not how often he is knocked down, but how quickly he gets up.‘

Dancers are always striving for perfection. A great dancer never achieves it: you always want to do another turn, a higher jump,a more difficult acrobatic jump.

We proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things and tackling our biggest challenges.

Actors I admire? Ed Harris, or course, I think he’s terrific; because I know he always had to fight being what he looked like a lot, but I think he’s a terrific actor.

Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.

The rich are those who play to win. The middle class plays not to lose.

The ladder of success is never crowded at the top.

The joy of doing well as a batsman for your country is much more than that little joy of going for a party and enjoying music. It is a completely different high, and I get high by performances. That’s what I enjoy now.

Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities.

Diligence is the mother of good fortune.

There’s a long way to fall when you pretend that you’re so far away from the earth, far away from reality, floating in a bubble that’s protected by fame or success. It’s scary, and it’s the thing I fear the most: to be swallowed up by that bubble. It can be poison to you, fame.

Whenever things go a bit sour in a job I’m doing, I always tell myself, ‚You can do better than this.‘

Let the people on both sides keep their self-possession, and just as other clouds have cleared away in due time, so will this, and this great nation shall continue to prosper as before.

Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.

It’s not an experiment if you know it’s going to work.

Success is not a stop sign.

In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm… in the real world all rests on perseverance.

Singleness of purpose is one of the chief essentials for success in life, no matter what may be one’s aim.

March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life’s path.

All my life, I’ve been trying to make a hole-in-one. The closest I’ve come is a bogey.

I want a president with a record of public service, someone whose life’s work shows our children that we don’t chase fame and fortune for ourselves: we fight to give everyone a chance to succeed.

There is little success where there is little laughter.

To be successful, you need results in a row. You can’t win, lose, win, lose.

I fear that many a man’s good resolutions only need the ordinary fire of daily life to make them melt away. So, too, with fine professions and the boastings of perfection which abound in this age of shams.

I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage.

I wanted to write when I was young, but people said it was impossible. Then my parents locked me in a mental institution – they said I was crazy and would never make a living from writing.

Songwriters, you have to work – you have to wait for residuals. You have to pray that the song’s going to be a hit. And then a year later, you might get a check.

I am very happy playing and showing off my talent on the cricket field and have no plans to enter Bollywood.

Whether you come from a council estate or a country estate, your success will be determined by your own confidence and fortitude.

No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.

I got the stern end of the stick. It was kind of that iron fist. I am who I am today because of my mother.

I wouldn’t say that I am one of the greatest dancers, but I am really quite good at what I do.

But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

If a man does his best, what else is there?

If you look at the history of Notre Dame, if you hire a coach who’s been successful at another college program, they’re going to be ultra successful at Notre Dame because the talent will always be there.

I wonder how many times people give up just before a breakthrough – when they are on the very brink of success.

It’s really hard to guarantee things in life. I guarantee if you get up in the morning and you work out, and you work hard, you will have a better day – 100% guaranteed.

He shines in the second rank, who is eclipsed in the first.

It always seems impossible until it’s done.

You get to a certain age, and you are forbidden access. You’re not going to get the kind of coverage that you would like in music magazines; you’re not going to get played on radio, and you’re not going to get played on television. I have to survive on word of mouth.

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.

If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.

Mickey Mouse popped out of my mind onto a drawing pad 20 years ago on a train ride from Manhattan to Hollywood at a time when business fortunes of my brother Roy and myself were at lowest ebb and disaster seemed right around the corner.

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.

All the breaks you need in life wait within your imagination, Imagination is the workshop of your mind, capable of turning mind energy into accomplishment and wealth.

I love it when people say things to me in public and want to meet me, because I want to meet them! Early on, my manager told me, ‚If you want to sell 500,000 records, then go out there and meet 500,000 people.‘

When we look back on all the perils through which we have passed and at the mighty foes that we have laid low and all the dark and deadly designs that we have frustrated, why should we fear for our future? We have come safely through the worst.

I guess you could say it’s always been my destiny to be a performer.

The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.

Being shoved into the top-40 scene was an unusual experience. It was great I’d become accessible to a huge audience but not terribly fulfilling.

Be more dedicated to making solid achievements than in running after swift but synthetic happiness.

I remember auditioning for record labels and having them tell me, ‚Well, the country-radio demographic is the thirty-five-year-old female housewife. Give us a song that relates to the thirty-five-year-old female, and we’ll talk.‘

It is easier to stay out than get out.

We should never lose an occasion. Opportunity is more powerful even than conquerors and prophets.

No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his well-being, to risk his body, to risk his life, in a great cause.

You simply have to put one foot in front of the other and keep going. Put blinders on and plow right ahead.

Rock stars are good at making noise.

If you’re afraid to fail, then you’re probably going to fail.