I believe that if you show people the problems and you show them the solutions they will be moved to act.

This industry has been really good to me. It’s been a great life. I’m not through yet. I’m ready when you are, Mr. DeMille.

Knowledge is a polite word for dead but not buried imagination.

I love the song ‚I Hope You Dance‘ by Lee Ann Womack. I was going to write that song, but someone beat me to it.

I suppose for me as an artist it wasn’t always just about expressing my work; I really wanted, more than anything else, to contribute in some way to the culture that I was living in. It just seemed like a challenge to move it a little bit towards the way I thought it might be interesting to go.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

No matter what has happened to you in the past or what is going on in your life right now, it has no power to keep you from having an amazingly good future if you will walk by faith in God. God loves you! He wants you to live with victory over sin so you can possess His promises for your life today!

It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.

Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.

By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.

You’ve really got to start hitting the books because it’s no joke out here.

It is easier to stay out than get out.

I fear that many a man’s good resolutions only need the ordinary fire of daily life to make them melt away. So, too, with fine professions and the boastings of perfection which abound in this age of shams.

I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out.

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.

I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone.

It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances.

I had rather be first in a village than second at Rome.

A smart girl leaves before she is left.

Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.

If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its Almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my country, deserted by all the world beside, and I standing up boldly and lone and hurling defiance at her victorious oppressors.

Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.

If we are to be happy, we must first react against our tendency to follow the line of least resistance, a tendency that causes us either to remain as we are, or to look primarily to activities external to ourselves for what will provide new impetus to our lives.

If you’re afraid to fail, then you’re probably going to fail.

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

My message to all the activists is to just keep going, and I know it really may seem impossible and hopeless sometimes – it always does – so you just have to keep going because if you try hard enough and long enough you will make a difference.

The spirit is there in every boy; it has to be discovered and brought to light.

All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me… You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.

I like George Carlin’s jokes. I like his humor. He’s one of my heroes, and I like what he did with talking about everyday things.

When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.

Growing up I’ve watched Lewis and aspired to have some of his attributes, mainly his speed. His raw pace is probably the best of everyone on the whole grid, so there are bits you want from different drivers.

A lot of football success is in the mind. You must believe you are the best and then make sure that you are.

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

I found it hard to be young. When I was married in my twenties, I hated being regarded as ‚the little wife.‘ You don’t know what it was like then! I’d never even written a cheque. I had to ask my husband for money for groceries.

It must be quite mysterious to some people why I bother to carry on. Because, you know, I don’t sell that many records.

Tomorrow, every Fault is to be amended; but that Tomorrow never comes.

The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses – behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.

My dad always said, ‚Champ, the measure of a man is not how often he is knocked down, but how quickly he gets up.‘

Do the duty which lies nearest to you, the second duty will then become clearer.

Every man I meet is in some way my superior.

Since I was old enough to understand what a songwriter/producer is, I’ve had a curiosity about how Max Martin creates what he creates. I wanted to see that happen. I wanted to be there. I wanted to learn from him.

I am an example of what is possible when girls from the very beginning of their lives are loved and nurtured by people around them. I was surrounded by extraordinary women in my life who taught me about quiet strength and dignity.

There is spontaneity to my work.

If an idea isn’t exciting, you shouldn’t do it.

The most miraculous process is watching a song go from a tiny idea in the middle of the night to something that 55,000 people are singing back to you.

Alas! You complain that your soul is out of tune. Then ask the Master to tune the heart-strings.

We can do anything we want to if we stick to it long enough.

Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow.

Years ago I met Richard Burton in Port Talbot, my home town, and afterwards he passed in his car with his wife, and I thought, ‚I want to get out and become like him‘. Not because of Wales, because I love Wales, but because I was so limited as a child at school and so bereft and lonely, and I thought becoming an actor would do that.

The best leaders understand the motivations of their team members and know their people – their lives and their families. But a leader must never grow so close to subordinates that one member of the team becomes more important than another, or more important than the mission itself.

You have to feel confident. If you don’t, then you’re going to be hesitant and defensive, and there’ll be a lot of things working against you.

For me, I used to be shy towards journalism because it wasn’t poetry. And then I realized that the events that I covered in essays that became journalism were actually great because they inspired me, and they became my muse.

No man can succeed in a line of endeavor which he does not like.

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.

People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things.

There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.

I find with most of my readers are kind of like me, sort of people who were a little bit naive in life and then learned the hard way that this is what’s going on, the political games and most of my readers write to me telling me that the book helped them open their eyes to what other people are doing to them.

I have the Midas touch, in the way that when I hook up with a project, I feel, not speaking cocky or conceited, but there’s a confidence I have. I learned that from Muhammad Ali; I used to bodyguard him. He taught me about confidence. So when it comes to any job I work, I’m gonna do it good; I’m going to bring it over the top.

There are old heads in the world who cannot help me by their example or advice to live worthily and satisfactorily to myself; but I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life.

In art the best is good enough.