At Columbia Law School, my professor of constitutional law and federal courts, Gerald Gunther, was determined to place me in a federal court clerkship, despite what was then viewed as a grave impediment: On graduation, I was the mother of a 4-year-old child.

Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.

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

Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.

A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.

I knew from the age of 16 that I wanted to be a writer because I just didn’t think I could do anything else. So I read and read and wrote short stories and dreamed of escape.

Do not reveal what you have thought upon doing, but by wise council keep it secret being determined to carry it into execution.

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

I’ve heard there are troubles of more than one kind; some come from ahead, and some come from behind. But I’ve brought a big bat. I’m all ready, you see; now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!

Education commences at the mother’s knee, and every word spoken within hearsay of little children tends toward the formation of character.

When facing a difficult task, act as though it is impossible to fail. If you are going after Moby Dick, take along the tartar sauce.

Believe you can and you’re halfway there.

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.

If you deserve it, go get it.

You sort of start thinking anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve.

Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.

Being self-made means never making an excuse as to why you can’t take steps toward whatever your goal is.

The most challenging project I’ve ever done, I think, is every single thing I’ve ever tried to do. It’s never easy.

A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.

I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the greatest.

I felt unhappy and trapped. If I left baseball, where could I go, what could I do to earn enough money to help my mother and to marry Rachel? The solution to my problem was only days away in the hands of a tough, shrewd, courageous man called Branch Rickey, the president of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

The influence of a mother upon the lives of her children cannot be measured. They know and absorb her example and attitudes when it comes to questions of honesty, temperance, kindness, and industry.

A lot of blood, sweat, and tears have gone into this career of mine.

For me, already being part of a single parent household and knowing it was just me and my mom, you’d would wake up times and hope that the next day you’d be able to be alongside your mother because she was out trying to make sure that I was taken care of. But all I cared about was her being home.

Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.

Music will never go away, and I will never stop making music; it’s just what capacity or what arena you decide to do it.

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.

By prevailing over all obstacles and distractions, one may unfailingly arrive at his chosen goal or destination.

I’ve never lived my life in the opinion of others. I believe I’m a good person. I believe I’m a good mom. But that’s for my kids to decide, not for the world.

God hangs the greatest weights upon the smallest wires.

One thing Britons have always been celebrated for, and that is being able to stick it out in a tight place.

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.

Do what nobody else can do for you. Omit to do anything else.

Imagine your family finally making it from nothing to something, and finally getting things going, and finally buying a beautiful house and taking care of your children – and the next day, it’s completely all gone. Zero. Boom. Flat broke. So that’s when I had to man up.

At one point, I didn’t care. Now I want as many people to hear my music as possible.

It may be possible to gild pure gold, but who can make his mother more beautiful?

How many a man has thrown up his hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience would have achieved success.

My mother, I suppose, is still a main figure in my life because her life was so sad and unfair, and she so brave, but also because she was determined to make me into the Sunday-school-recitation little girl I was, from the age of seven or so, fighting not to be.

I have never been bewildered for long in any fight with our enemies – I was Armed with Insight.

I’ve learned a lot since I was a new mother. My approach to struggle and shame now is to talk to yourself like you’d talk to someone you love and reach out to tell your story.

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.

Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.

I’m not going to limit myself just because people won’t accept the fact that I can do something else.

The man who has the will to undergo all labor may win to any good.

A man who has no office to go, to I don’t care who he is, is a trial of which you can have no conception.

He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.

I could give a flying flip about doing promo because, no disrespect, nobody put me in the position that I’m in.

I got the stern end of the stick. It was kind of that iron fist. I am who I am today because of my mother.

People just don’t understand how obsessed I am with winning.

When you are asked if you can do a job, tell ‚em, ‚Certainly I can!‘ Then get busy and find out how to do it.

I had a rough childhood coming up, and I just took all that negative energy and made it very positive for myself to drive me. I’m a very driven person. I have passion that almost scares people, just to be successful and make it no matter what.

I think if I keep working in the way that I am, from the heart and from passion and with love, well, the fruits of that will keep coming.

Being second is to be the first of the ones who lose.

Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

If you make yourself indispensable to your employer, he is not going to part with you in a hurry no matter what it costs him.

I decided to pursue music, so I dropped out of school and I told my parents I didn’t want any money from them. I got three jobs and I just hit the ground running.

I can understand how some people might resent me for having the audacity to continue playing music, but it’d take a lot more than that to stop me from doing it. I started Foo Fighters because I didn’t want to retreat.

Truth is mysterious, elusive, always to be conquered. Liberty is dangerous, as hard to live with as it is elating. We must march toward these two goals, painfully but resolutely, certain in advance of our failings on so long a road.

What is success? I think it is a mixture of having a flair for the thing that you are doing; knowing that it is not enough, that you have got to have hard work and a certain sense of purpose.

I sing seriously to my mom on the phone. To put her to sleep, I have to sing ‚Maria‘ from West Side Story. When I hear her snoring, I hang up.