A word after a word after a word is power.

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

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.

The spread of civilisation may be likened to a fire; first, a feeble spark, next a flickering flame, then a mighty blaze, ever increasing in speed and power.

My whole thing is to inspire, to better people, to better myself forever in this thing that we call rap, this thing that we call hip hop.

We live in a culture that relishes tearing others down. It’s ultimately more fulfilling, though, to help people reach their goals. Instead of feeling jealous, remember: If God did it for them, He can do it for you.

Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.

Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him.

My inspiration is R. Kelly, Michael Jackson, and Prince – for the vocals, anyway.

I don’t know how many good books I still have in me; I hope there are another four or five.

Shakespeare didn’t work at all for me.

Love is easy, and I love writing. You can’t resist love. You get an idea, someone says something, and you’re in love.

A great thing can only be done by a great person; and they do it without effort.

If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.

Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.

The world’s biggest power is the youth and beauty of a woman.

When you give everyone a voice and give people power, the system usually ends up in a really good place. So, what we view our role as, is giving people that power.

Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.

He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.

In art the best is good enough.

All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours.

For me, the essence of the great American Dream is spiritual. I believe that our Constitution is inspired and that it is based on principles that are timeless and universal. This is the reason why 95% of all written constitutions throughout the world are modeled after our Constitution.

There is no necessity to separate the monarch from the mob; all authority is equally bad.

Affluence means influence.

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.

We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment.

Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.

Defeat doesn’t finish a man, quit does. A man is not finished when he’s defeated. He’s finished when he quits.

Once we start to act, hope is everywhere. So instead of looking for hope, look for action. Then, and only then, hope will come.

Whether for life or death, do your own work well.

Success isn’t supposed to happen, no matter how hard you work. There’s no guarantee you’re going to succeed. There’s nothing set in stone.

You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.

The future is like heaven, everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there now.

Life doesn’t require that we be the best, only that we try our best.

When Hillary was First Lady, we went to the Beijing Women’s Conference. She courageously stood up and spoke out on behalf of human rights and women’s rights, inspiring millions to fight for a better future.

It was one of those evenings when men feel that truth, goodness and beauty are one. In the morning, when they commit their discovery to paper, when others read it written there, it looks wholly ridiculous.

If you can talk, you can write.

Winning is the most important. Everything is consequence of that.

Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.

It is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one’s own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane.

Some things get written more quickly than others, but I can’t really measure degrees of difficulty.

When I am writing, I do not distinguish between the natural and supernatural. Everything seems real. That is my world, you could say.

It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.

If you want to reach the top, don’t run over others. Likely, the only way you’ll reach the top is to be carried there by others.

Writing is a dreadful labor, yet not so dreadful as Idleness.

There is a soak-the-rich attitude in the air, a feeling that if you have a lot of money you must have got it by some ghastly means. I can quite happily say there was never any family money. All the money we got was mine, just from writing books.

Don’t gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver or gold.

You know capitalism is this wonderful thing that motivates people, it causes wonderful inventions to be done. But in this area of diseases of the world at large, it’s really let us down.

You can’t try to do things; you simply must do them.

No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.

I believe the destiny of your generation – and your nation – is a rendezvous with excellence.

I always have to be writing.

Immense power is acquired by assuring yourself in your secret reveries that you were born to control affairs.

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.

Without discipline, there’s no life at all.

To make an embarrassing admission, I like video games. That’s what got me into software engineering when I was a kid. I wanted to make money so I could buy a better computer to play better video games – nothing like saving the world.

I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will which will stake even existence upon its fulfillment.

I started writing at the kitchen table after midnight. It took ten months to finish that first book; I sent it to a publisher and I got some kind of prize, so it was like a dream – I was surprised to find it happening.

I can never say ‚why‘ about anything I do. I suppose I can say ‚how‘ and ‚when‘ and ‚what.‘ But ‚why‘ is impenetrable to me.

Knowledge is power.