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

You always want to quit while you are ahead. You don’t want to be like a fighter who stays too long in the ring until you’re not performing at your best.

When something an affliction happens to you, you either let it defeat you, or you defeat it.

It’s stasis that kills you off in the end, not ambition.

Wherever the enemy wants to fight, we will follow him to the ends of the Earth. We’ll adapt, we’ll train, we’ll advise, we’ll mentor, and we’ll fight, and we’ll fight well.

We have soon to have everywhere smoke annihilators, dust absorbers, ozonizers, sterilizers of water, air, food and clothing, and accident preventers on streets, elevated roads and in subways. It will become next to impossible to contract disease germs or get hurt in the city, and country folk will got to town to rest and get well.

We should no longer measure our wealth and success in the graph that shows economic growth, but in the curve that shows the emissions of greenhouse gases.

Fame and power are the objects of all men. Even their partial fruition is gained by very few; and that, too, at the expense of social pleasure, health, conscience, life.

If I haven’t any talent for writing books or newspaper articles, well, then I can always write for myself.

If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.

It was like I was in a tunnel. Not only the tunnel under the hotel but the whole circuit was a tunnel. I was just going and going, more and more and more and more. I was way over the limit but still able to find even more.

There are definitely people who disagree with certain creative decisions you make. Pleasing everyone is pretty hard.

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

One thing I’ve always loved about the culture at Microsoft is there is nobody who is tougher on us, in terms of what we need to learn and do better, than the people in the company itself. You can walk down these halls, and they’ll tell you, ‚We need to do usability better, push this or that frontier.‘

I pay attention to politics and technology.

Good luck has its storms.

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

When art dresses in worn-out material it is most easily recognized as art.

If you are going to write, say, fantasy – stop reading fantasy. You’ve already read too much. Read other things; read westerns, read history, read anything that seems interesting, because if you only read fantasy and then you start to write fantasy, all you’re going to do is recycle the same old stuff and move it around a bit.

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

My stories run up and bite me on the leg – I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.

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.

Writing a song is so personal. You have to have trust in someone you’re working with; otherwise, you’re not gonna come out with something that’s really you.

I’m not going to stop having problems.

I can express myself.

There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.

In California, we have some of the strongest consumer protection laws in the country. While it is easy to conceive of innovation and regulation as mutually exclusive, California is proof that we can do both. We can innovate responsibly.

Good ideas are free – or at least they should be.

For me, money is not my definition of success. Inspiring people is a definition of success.

Competitions are a business, first and foremost.

I believe in sketching because there is something very sensitive in sketching, you know, in sketches that you don’t have out of a computer that looks the same like everybody even if, later on, the dresses are OK, but I like to sketch, and I like to see trails made after my sketches that look the same. It is you know, what I like.

In my opinion, rankings are a very fickle measurement of one’s success and it is best to not get carried away by it.

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, familiar things new.

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.

Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relation.

You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.

In a time not distant, it will be possible to flash any image formed in thought on a screen and render it visible at any place desired. The perfection of this means of reading thought will create a revolution for the better in all our social relations.

There are millions of Americans outside Washington who are tired of stale political arguments and are moving this country forward. They believe, and I believe, that here in America, our success should depend not on accident of birth, but the strength of our work ethic and the scope of our dreams.

I’m never gonna step away from stand-up. I can’t. That’s what got me where I am, and that’s also my muse. That’s how I stay level-headed. That’s what keeps me going.

Fighting for one’s freedom, struggling towards being free, is like struggling to be a poet or a good Christian or a good Jew or a good Muslim or good Zen Buddhist. You work all day long and achieve some kind of level of success by nightfall, go to sleep and wake up the next morning with the job still to be done. So you start all over again.

I think my first album opened a lot of doors for me to push the freedom of speech to the limit.

Luck marches with those who give their very best.

Life is a journey. When we stop, things don’t go right.

I got a signed document from Bullock’s saying that they had such-and-such drawings on consignment. Of course, nobody bought any of them, but otherwise, I was a big success: I had my drawings on sale at Bullock’s!

Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.

I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the promised land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land.

A song has to take on character, shape, body and influence people to an extent that they use it for their own devices. It must affect them not just as a song, but as a lifestyle.

It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where we are today, but we have just begun. Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.

People want you to fail.

The artist in me cries out for design.

I can’t see myself singing the same song twice in a row. That’s terrible.

Energy innovation is not a nationalistic game.

Obedience brings success; exact obedience brings miracles.

If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.

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

Live out of your imagination, not your history.

Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.

I didn’t want to be a writer, but I became one. And now I have many readers, in many countries. I think that’s a miracle. So I think I have to be humble regarding this ability. I’m proud of it and I enjoy it, and it is strange to say it this way, but I respect it.

Successful people make money. It’s not that people who make money become successful, but that successful people attract money. They bring success to what they do.