Bottom line is, I didn’t return to Apple to make a fortune. I’ve been very lucky in my life and already have one. When I was 25, my net worth was $100 million or so. I decided then that I wasn’t going to let it ruin my life. There’s no way you could ever spend it all, and I don’t view wealth as something that validates my intelligence.

I always knew from that moment, from the time I found myself at home in that little segregated library in the South, all the way up until I walked up the steps of the New York City library, I always felt, in any town, if I can get to a library, I’ll be OK. It really helped me as a child, and that never left me.

It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.

Whether you come from a council estate or a country estate, your success will be determined by your own confidence and fortitude.

There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.

Let the path be open to talent.

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.

Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory.

The spirit of America has nurtured responsibility and community unlike any other country.

I’ve always believed in God. I also think that’s the sort of thing that either comes as part of the equipment, the capacity to believe, or at some point in your life, when you’re in a position where you actually need help from a power greater than yourself, you simply make an agreement.

It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.

The older I get the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking first things first. A process which often reduces the most complex human problem to a manageable proportion.

Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.

I’ve learned over the years that when I go to that place of passion within me, there’s no force in the universe that can interfere with my completing a project.

If you’re doing a biography, you try to stay as accurate as possible to reality. But you really don’t know what was going on in the person’s mind. You just know what was going on in the minds of people around him.

Catering to bad feelings feeds and empowers them.

Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.

In inner-city, low-income communities of color, there’s such a high correlation in terms of educational quality and success.

Adopt responsibility for your own well-being, try to put your family together, try to serve your community, try to seek for eternal truth… That’s the sort of thing that can ground you in your life, enough so that you can withstand the difficulty of life.

Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.

I’m sure the feeling of fear, as long as you can take advantage of it and not be rendered useless by it, can make you extend yourself beyond what you would regard as your capacity. If you’re afraid, the blood seems to flow freely through the veins, and you really do feel a sense of stimulation.

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.

We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork, you must make a decision.

Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.

It is a way to take people’s wealth from them without having to openly raise taxes. Inflation is the most universal tax of all.

My life is not to be somebody else’s impact – you know what I mean?

I spent most of the early years of my walk with God focused on what was wrong with me. Most of us probably do that, hoping to change ourselves.

I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe.

Music is really driving my whole life.

A warrior is not a person that carries a gun. The biggest war you ever go through is right between your own ears. It’s in your mind. We’re all going through a war in our mind, and we have to callus our mind to fight that war and to win that war.

My future is righteousness.

The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today.

Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.

If you’re embarrassed because you have some notion about how men are supposed to behave, and it doesn’t include weeping, then you have some personal work to do.

Sadly, the truth is, there aren’t many people who can be put in high positions who won’t start thinking highly of themselves.

We choose what attitudes we have right now. And it’s a continuing choice.

It’s amazing: I am a New Yorker. It’s strange; I never thought I would be.

What’s the greater risk? Letting go of what people think – or letting go of how I feel, what I believe, and who I am?

My music seems to have a bigger mission than I have, which is very soothing but also very strange because people see more in me than I see, which can be terrifying.

Integrity has no need of rules.

I was a bit challenged when I was younger to stay on the right path.

In the world today many people rightfully feel entitled to have success and the good things in life, but they usually understand it will require sacrifice and hard work.

At one point I learned transcendental meditation. This was 30-something years ago. It took me back to the way that I naturally was as a child growing up way in the country, rarely seeing people. I was in that state of oneness with creation and it was as if I didn’t exist except as a part of everything.

I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.

As I get older, I tend to put more into family than I used to.

These are the soul’s changes. I don’t believe in ageing. I believe in forever altering one’s aspect to the sun. Hence my optimism.

There are things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind.

Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.

I got teased my entire school life. What they were picking on I don’t even understand.

Would I swap what I have achieved as a cook if I could have been as successful as a footballer? Definitely.

I’ve realized that being happy is a choice. You never want to rub anybody the wrong way or not be fun to be around, but you have to be happy. When I get logical and I don’t trust my instincts – Thats when I get in trouble.

We have a choice about how we take what happens to us in our life and whether or not we allow it to turn us. We can become consumed by hate and darkness, or we’re able to regain our humanity somehow, or come to terms with things and learn something about ourselves.

I want to work; then, as my kids get older, I want to have adventures. I want to visit all their countries: learn and live inside all their cultures.

Keeping score is for games, not friendships.

College isn’t in everyone’s hearts. I am living proof, though, that school doesn’t mess up your plans. It gives you more experiences to write about.

I’m not frightened of appearing vulnerable.

I’m not critic-proof, and I still take it personally, but I take it less personally now.

Only by contending with challenges that seem to be beyond your strength to handle at the moment you can grow more surely toward the stars.

I have no time to think about other writers. I am too busy with my own problems.

I’m a mama’s boy because everything I do is with respect to my mother. I won’t do a movie or a video that would bring disrespect to my mother.

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.