Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.

If an idea isn’t exciting, you shouldn’t do it.

Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.

Never was anything great achieved without danger.

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.

Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.

We were poor, but we smiled.

The final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.

Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.

I was a housewife, so I learned to write in times off, and I don’t think I ever gave it up, though there were times when I was very discouraged because I began to see that the stories I was writing were not very good, that I had a lot to learn, and that it was a much, much harder job than I had expected.

I wasn’t that great a chef, and I don’t think I’m that great a writer.

I’m not very articulate.

All of us are guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress.

I’m never going to be fast, and nobody will ever mistake me for being fast.

The great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.

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.

A person places themselves on a level with the ones they praise.

After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.

I believe God is managing affairs and that He doesn’t need any advice from me. With God in charge, I believe everything will work out for the best in the end. So what is there to worry about.

In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider.

There is only one sort of discipline, perfect discipline.

What you have outside you counts less than what you have inside you.

For every disciplined effort there is a multiple reward.

I’m always trying. Between every book, I think, ‚Well now, it’s time to get down to the serious stuff.‘

A people free to choose will always choose peace.

I never cut class. I loved getting A’s, I liked being smart. I liked being on time. I thought being smart is cooler than anything in the world.

Lets have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

We should live our lives as though Christ were coming this afternoon.

I have always been pushed by the negative. The apparent failure of a play sends me back to my typewriter that very night, before the reviews are out. I am more compelled to get back to work than if I had a success.

We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the postive affirmation of peace.

We need enlightenment, not just individually but collectively, to save the planet. We need to awaken ourselves. We need to practice mindfulness if we want to have a future, if we want to save ourselves and the planet.

If I inspire you, pay for it, period.

Because my dad abused me, I was determined to never let a man tell me what to do. God clearly showed me that I needed to be a submissive wife if I wanted to be effective in ministry. The truth is, if we don’t learn to submit to authority, we won’t ever learn to submit to God.

I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine.

We all sort of do want incentives for creative people to still exist at a certain level. You know, maybe rock stars shouldn’t make as much; who knows? But you want as much creativity to take place in the future as took place in the past.

If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.

It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.

Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone.

I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels.

If you try to fight the course, it will beat you.

What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.

Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.

What did I owe the rest of the world? Nothing.

Becoming an inspiration for kids is great. I want to inspire them to do whatever they want to.

Hope is a waking dream.

People have to go through trials and tribulations to get where they at. Do your thing – continue to rock it – because obviously, God wants you here.

It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes. What matters most is getting off. You cannot make progress without making decisions.

Seek always to do some good, somewhere. Every man has to seek in his own way to realize his true worth. You must give some time to your fellow man. For remember, you don’t live in a world all your own. Your brothers are here too.

A man can do only what he can do. But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day.

Before finding music, I didn’t have too many aspirations. I wanted to hang out, make a little money from whatever I had to do.

I’m not sure what you need first – the players believing or others believing in them – but in the end, both have to think it.

Humility is not something that comes naturally. But it is a cardinal virtue that should be pursued more than any other.

There are going to be things I’m not going to be great at, times when I make mistakes, 100%.

America is the student who defies the odds to become the first in a family to go to college – the citizen who defies the cynics and goes out there and votes – the young person who comes out of the shadows to demand the right to dream. That’s what America is about.

Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they’ve got a second.

Live out of your imagination, not your history.

I look at myself like a show dog. I’ve got to keep her clipped and trimmed and in good shape.

Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that’s real power.

A day wasted on others is not wasted on one’s self.

I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs.

If you don’t like what you’re doing, then don’t do it.