If you get knocked down – setbacks in life, like applying for a job if they don’t hire you – keep trying, keep getting up, keep doing it.

A man’s got to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book.

I think the great part about what I do is that there’s a scoreboard. At the end of every week, you know how you did. You know how well you prepared. You know whether you executed your game plan. There’s a tangible score.

I can handle pain.

If you tell me there’s something I can’t do, I’ll want to do it even more. Especially when it comes to entertaining.

I don’t think I will ever be content. I am somebody who is always hungry.

Hey, I think it’s easy for guys to hit .300 and stay in the big leagues. Hit .200 and try to stick around as long as I did; I think it’s a much greater accomplishment. That’s hard.

Why go through life if you’re not going to challenge yourself?

I have a great respect for incremental improvement, and I’ve done that sort of thing in my life, but I’ve always been attracted to the more revolutionary changes. I don’t know why. Because they’re harder. They’re much more stressful emotionally. And you usually go through a period where everybody tells you that you’ve completely failed.

Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it.

I’m convinced that no one can amount to a damn in the arts if he becomes sweetly reasonable, seeing all sides of a picture, forgiving all sins.

If my edge is dull, my sword is dull, and I don’t want to fight another guy whose sword is dull. If you’ve got two steel swords going back and forth hitting each other, what’s gonna happen? Both of them are going to get sharper. Everybody that’s in the industry has lost their edge.

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.

Dave Mackay is my definition of a superstar. The man broke his leg three times, but wouldn’t be carried off. He walked off.

Though ambition in itself is a vice, it often is also the parent of virtue.

I get up every morning and say, ‚Father, give me strength today, not strength so I can lift 500 pounds, but give me strength, Lord, so when I speak, my words might motivate, might inspire somebody, Lord, when they see me, let them see you. When they hear me, Lord, let them hear you. In your holy name I pray.‘

If you’ve got a plan, it’s not just like a pipe dream. You have a step-by-step list of things to do to get to your goal.

Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music.

I will never retire unless I have to.

We may stumble and fall but shall rise again; it should be enough if we did not run away from the battle.

Everyone has the potential to become an encourager. You don’t have to be rich. You don’t have to be a genius. You don’t have to have it all together. All you have to do is care about people and initiate.

God helps those who help themselves.

Everybody accuses me of moving fast when I direct a picture. I don’t move fast, but I just keep moving.

What is normal? Normal was yesterday. If you lose a leg, one day you’re hopping around on one leg, so you know the difference.

It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.

I will do this job as long as I feel that I can do it full steam.

We were poor. But my mom never accepted that. She worked hard to become a residential contractor – got her master’s with honors at the University of New Orleans. I used to go to every class with her. Her father was my paternal figure.

If I’m going to get you to do stuff, I need to lead you. I can’t just order you to do it.

I’m about being the best.

One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity.

I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‚Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.‘

A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.

There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November.

Ambition can creep as well as soar.

Infinite striving to be the best is man’s duty; it is its own reward. Everything else is in God’s hands.

To the person with a firm purpose all men and things are servants.

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.

He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.

I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.

If a guy hits .300 every year, what does he have to look forward to? I always tried to stay around .190, with three or four RBI. And I tried to get them all in September. That way I always had something to talk about during the winter.

Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success.

There is one thing that gets you out of bed in the morning, and that is discipline. Because your dreams and your goals are not there waking up for you in the morning.

The colonel replied that he didn’t care how my men had got the job done. He was happy that it had been accomplished. He said that, obviously, no matter how much or how little I knew technically, I was able to get the best out of people I worked with.

Don’t worry about motivation. Motivation is fickle. It comes and goes. It is unreliable – and when you are counting on motivation to get your goals accomplished, you will likely fall short.

If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.

I have to write 100 songs before you write the first good one.

Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.

The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.

The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.

Anything you really want, you can attain, if you really go after it.

Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something.

My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.

The starting point of all achievement is desire.

We can do anything we want to if we stick to it long enough.

Storms make trees take deeper roots.

We are never defeated unless we give up on God.

Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.

What I admire most about Hillary is that she never buckles under pressure. She never takes the easy way out. And Hillary Clinton has never quit on anything in her life.

When people are taken out of their depths they lose their heads, no matter how charming a bluff they may put up.

The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.