I built a label at the same time I built a career.

Those who know me know I’m passionate about lists, and top of my list of priorities is my family. My wife Joan and I do not consider our legacy to our children to be wealth or fame but the opportunity to pursue happiness by following their own path.

I don’t see myself in terms of artifice. I see myself as a real person who chooses to live my life in an open way – artistically.

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.

I’ve never been shy or secretive with the fact that if you walk into my life, you may be walking onto a record.

Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.

The young think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did – which was to hide.

It didn’t even occur to me that I’m the last person in the world who should play salsa or Brazilian music.

Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil, and let us see what we are made of.

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.

When I was making the early stuff, I never expected it to be so big. I was in my own kind of bubble. I never wanted to tour; I just wanted to create music and make a diary I could put out into the world. And sometimes, I became the characters.

Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.

I will not be concerned at other men’s not knowing me; I will be concerned at my own want of ability.

What humility does for one is it reminds us that there are people before me. I have already been paid for. And what I need to do is prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who has yet to come but who may be here and needs me.

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.

We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.

We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years and justify our existence… on pain of liquidation.

People who use time wisely spend it on activities that advance their overall purpose in life.

I think that as you grow up, as you get older, we can’t get bitter, we can’t get jaded.

If you desire to be good, begin by believing that you are wicked.

Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the Divine.

We have the tendency to run away from suffering and to look for happiness. But, in fact, if you have not suffered, you have no chance to experience real happiness.

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

I was bullied as a boy – lots of kids are, but hopefully most of us get on with our lives and grow up.

Enemies are so stimulating.

Man needs his difficulties because they are necessary to enjoy success.

You aren’t learning anything when you’re talking.

I think as long as I do a good job and put in all my effort to proving that I’m worth it, then everything should be fine.

Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many – not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.

I’m pretty positive, optimistic, so I always expect the best.

We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.

If you’re in this business and you are scared, then you better do something else.

Read a record number of books in a given month. If you’re focused on intellectual growth, train yourself to study harder and longer than ever before.

We think the Mac will sell zillions, but we didn’t build the Mac for anybody else. We built it for ourselves. We were the group of people who were going to judge whether it was great or not. We weren’t going to go out and do market research. We just wanted to build the best thing we could build.

Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

I know, to banish anger altogether from one’s breast is a difficult task. It cannot be achieved through pure personal effort. It can be done only by God’s grace.

It is the nature of every person to error, but only the fool perseveres in error.

I always put myself out there. I’m not afraid to commit to something.

Whenever I write a novel, I have a strong sense that I am doing something I was unable to do before. With each new work, I move up a step and discover something new inside me.

I feel real good because it’s about representing the young world and how to uplift each other and how to push us to be greater and make sure we don’t fall or get trapped or get in trouble, you know what I mean. Stay focused, you know what I mean.

The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.

You are going to let the fear of poverty govern you life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.

You simply have to accept that your demons are a part of you.

Honestly, I always believed in myself. For real, for real.

Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.

People can cry much easier than they can change.

Man has two great spiritual needs. One is for forgiveness. The other is for goodness.

What consumerism really is, at its worst is getting people to buy things that don’t actually improve their lives.

Remember, always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember, others may hate you. But those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.

It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires great strength to decide on what to do.

I’m not a regrets-type person.

I never come back home with the same moral character I went out with; something or other becomes unsettled where I had achieved internal peace; some one or other of the things I had put to flight reappears on the scene.

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

I feel like this: Whatever is in your path and in your heart, you need to do.

As a young kid, I really wanted to be rich.

Had I been a great athlete, I’m not sure I would have even gone into coaching. I may have turned out feeling that my life ended when my athletic career ended, as happens so many times with various athletes.

The idea of recognising your strengths and using them in as versatile a way as you can is cool to me.

Sometimes you must suffer through something to defeat your fear of it.

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’m fat, but I’m thin inside… there’s a thin man inside every fat man.

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.