I think every chef, not just in America, but across the world, has a double-edged sword – two jackets, one that’s driven, a self-confessed perfectionist, thoroughbred, hate incompetence and switch off the stove, take off the jacket and become a family man.

The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me.

I guess, taking away all the theatrics or the costuming and the outer layers of what I do, I’m a writer… I write.

Don’t be a writer; it’s a terrible way to live your life. There’s nothing to be gained from it but poverty and obscurity and solitude. So if you have a taste for all those things, which means that you really are burning to do it, then go ahead and do it. But don’t expect anything from anybody.

I believe enlightenment or revelation comes in daily life. I look for joy, the peace of action. You need action. I’d have stopped writing years ago if it were for the money.

I think the thing we see is that as people are using video games more, they tend to watch passive TV a bit less. And so using the PC for the Internet, playing video games, is starting to cut into the rather unbelievable amount of time people spend watching TV.

When you are enthusiastic about what you do, you feel this positive energy. It’s very simple.

I am a grafter.

I would say the most satisfying thing actually is watching my three children each pick up on their own interests and work many more hours per week than most people that have jobs at trying to intelligently give away that money in fields that they particularly care about.

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

I have to admit I’ve found myself doing the same things that a lot of other rock stars do or are forced to do. Which is not being able to respond to mail, not being able to keep up on current music, and I’m pretty much locked away a lot. The outside world is pretty foreign to me.

When it comes down to my brand, We the Best, we’re about the people and whoever is passionate and in love the way I’m in love when it comes down to the headphones I’m promoting.

I don’t intend to stop making music.

A reputation as a hard worker is a good reputation to have.

I was always interested in choreography – in making people think and feel something.

I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.

If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.

I’ve been writing my entire life, and I’ll always write.

You have to stay faithful to what you’re working on.

I’ll do whatever it takes to win games, whether it’s sitting on a bench waving a towel, handing a cup of water to a teammate, or hitting the game-winning shot.

If you love something – and there are things that I love – you do want more and more and more of it, but that’s not the way to produce good work.

It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances.

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.

‚Harry Potter‘ gave me back self respect. Harry gave me a job to do that I loved more than anything else.

I love movement. I love moshing.

The Kobe craze really annoyed me. Most of the practitioners had no real understanding of the product and were abusing it and exploiting it in terrible and ridiculous ways. Kobe beef should not be used in a hamburger. It’s completely pointless.

When you cook under pressure you trade perfection.

I feel like people can relate to me because we all go through wins and roadblocks and passion and pain, and it’s a vibe.

Our lifestyle was not in any way a negative. That was not the problem. That is and will remain one of the wonderful opportunities we are able to give our children.

It is my desire, in the office of a Christian minister, to do nothing which I cannot do with my whole heart. Having said this, I have said all.

I do not believe a man can ever leave his business. He ought to think of it by day and dream of it by night.

One of the huge imbalances in life is the disparity between your daily existence, with its routines and habits, and the dream you have within yourself of some extraordinarily satisfying way of living.

I love making movies, but there’s nothing like performing live.

On ‚Grey’s Anatomy‘ I wouldn’t care what I was playing – I would play a corpse, ‚cause I love it that much. It is deep true love, and it will never die.

Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.

There is spontaneity to my work.

I get very little sleep when the court is sitting.

Being a stand-up is my mission in life; it’s my passion. My ongoing goal is to simply be funny, on my own, in front of a roomful of strangers.

The companies that work are the ones that people really care about and have a vision for the world so do something you like.

The incomparable greatness of the religions of the East lies in their having been second to none in vibrating with the passion for unity. This note, which is essential to every form of mysticism, has even penetrated them so deeply that we find ourselves falling under a spell simply by uttering the names of their Gods.

Whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do it well; whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself completely; in great aims and in small I have always thoroughly been in earnest.

I am the most unselfish chef in Britain today.

Those who cannot work with their hearts achieve but a hollow, half-hearted success that breeds bitterness all around.

I like to take it easy.

Films and television and even comic books are churning out vast quantities of fictional narratives, and the public continues to swallow them up with great passion. That is because human beings need stories.

Would I swap what I have achieved as a cook if I could have been as successful as a footballer? Definitely.

I don’t control my writing – it controls me.

Because my career is so important, I think I make a lot of – I wouldn’t call them sacrifices, but just concessions for my job. I love what I do, and I want to do it for a long time.

An artist needn’t be a clergyman or a churchwarden, but he certainly must have a warm heart for his fellow men.

I make it a rule never to smoke while I’m sleeping.

I’m in awe of the universe, but I don’t necessarily believe there’s an intelligence or agent behind it. I do have a passion for the visual in religious rituals, though, even though they may be completely empty and bereft of substance. The incense is powerful and provocative, whether Buddhist or Catholic.

Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution?

I was a sociology major. And it had nothing to do necessarily with law, which is ultimately – I went to law school. But what I tried to do was choose something that I was passionate about or something that I cared about.

Have convictions. Be friendly. Stick to your beliefs as they stick to theirs. Work as hard as they do.

I knew early on that I wanted to entertain in some form. And I knew I would work as hard as anyone to do it.

I’ve said this time and again: My greatest concern coming into the White House was making sure my girls came out whole and normal, and decent and kind, just like I would expect them to if we were living on the South Side of Chicago. And it takes work to keep White House life normal for the kids.

I’m just wanting to make the proper breakfast and keep the house. That’s my passion. At the request of my kids, I’m taking cooking classes. As I go to sleep at night, I think, ‚Did I do a great job as a mom, or was that an average day?‘

I’ve played with IVs before, during and after games. I’ve played with a broken hand, a sprained ankle, a torn shoulder, a fractured tooth, a severed lip, and a knee the size of a softball. I don’t miss 15 games because of a toe injury that everybody knows wasn’t that serious in the first place.

I like to have fun all the time, even if I’m working.

I’d like to dial it back 5% or 10% and try to have a vacation that’s not just e-mail with a view.

One cannot become a saint when one works sixteen hours a day.