For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‚If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?‘ And whenever the answer has been ‚No‘ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

The shortest answer is doing the thing.

Now we’re in the midst of not just advocating for change, not just calling for change – we’re doing the grinding, sometimes frustrating work of delivering change – inch by inch, day by day.

There are a lot of things I never did, because I believe in watching those true Hollywood stories and I see how easy it is to lose track of your life.

I was a thug.

I don’t see the point of doing an interview unless you’re going to share the things you learn in life and the mistakes you make. So to admit that I’m extremely human and have done some dark things I don’t think makes me unusual or unusually dark. I think it actually is the right thing to do, and I’d like to think it’s the nice thing to do.

You are victors, not victims!

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.

Don’t be dependent. At all. Ever. Period.

Nearly all the things I do that are of any merit at all start off just being good fun, and I think I’m sort of building up to doing something else quite soon.

In a universe that’s an intelligent system with a divine creative force supporting it, there simply can be no accidents. As tough as it is to acknowledge, you had to go through what you went through in order to get to where you are today, and the evidence is that you did.

I try not to think about my life. I have no life. I need therapy.

Men take only their needs into consideration – never their abilities.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Never say anything about yourself you do not want to come true.

You need to overcome the tug of people against you as you reach for high goals.

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.

The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.

I knew I wasn’t going to be a rocket scientist – let’s not be fools – but I wasn’t going to be a bum.

There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.

I can do whatever I want.

I’ve never met a genius. A genius to me is someone who does well at something he hates. Anybody can do well at something he loves – it’s just a question of finding the subject.

My dad used to have an expression – ‚It is the lucky person who gets up in the morning, puts both feet on the floor, knows what they are about to do, and thinks it still matters.‘

There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.

Remember, you can always stoop and pick up nothing.

We herd sheep, we drive cattle, we lead people. Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.

Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

You can either be a host to God, or a hostage to your ego. It’s your call.

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.

The truth is something that burns. It burns off dead wood. And people don’t like having the dead wood burnt off, often because they’re 95 percent dead wood.

If a person doesn’t change, there’s something really wrong with him.

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

Everyone needs a coach. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a basketball player, a tennis player, a gymnast or a bridge player.

One of the wonderful things about Oprah: She teaches you to keep on stepping.

If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.

I tried acting, liked it, and stuck with it. I saw it as the way I would keep that promise to myself of getting back at those who had made my school life a misery.

It’s not to much fun to know yourself too well or think you do – everyone needs a little conceit to carry them through & past the falls.

If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.

If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.

I write for the same reason I breathe – because if I didn’t, I would die.

Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.

Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it.

Find people who will make you better.

Once you say you’re going to settle for second, that’s what happens to you in life.

No one’s policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analysing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes.

If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then you are residing on another planet with a different reality system.

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.

At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.

Sometimes, if you begin to sing in a halfhearted mood, you can sing yourself up the ladder. Singing will often make the heart rise.

He that can have patience can have what he will.

I wasn’t born a natural entrepreneur. I had to be trained.

Washington is a very easy city for you to forget where you came from and why you got there in the first place.

Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

All honor’s wounds are self-inflicted.

Characters do not change. Opinions alter, but characters are only developed.

I grew up in a rural area called Vega Baja and I’m the first of so many talented people in this area to make it out. I take great pride to represent where I come from and I am able to show my fans, and everyone who listens and watches me, that anything is possible.

One’s only rival is one’s own potentialities. One’s only failure is failing to live up to one’s own possibilities. In this sense, every man can be a king, and must therefore be treated like a king.

In order to fly, all one must do is simply miss the ground.