I can’t keep somebody from being a star, and I can’t make somebody a star, and nobody can.

Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.

Really, you don’t lose until you stop trying.

One that desires to excel should endeavor in those things that are in themselves most excellent.

We do not need to proselytise either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study.

Good men by nature, wish to know. I know that many will call this useless work… men who desire nothing but material riches and are absolutely devoid of that of wisdom, which is the food and only true riches of the mind.

All very successful commanders are prima donnas and must be so treated.

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.

I don’t have to be what you want me to be.

Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin at once, whether you ready or not, to put this plan into action.

Let us be shy no longer. Let us go to our strength. Let us offer hope. Let us tell the world that a new age is not only possible but probable.

Educate the masses, elevate their standard of intelligence, and you will certainly have a successful nation.

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

People tend to play in their comfort zone, so the best things are achieved in a state of surprise, actually.

I am who I am today because of my mother.

Fun is one of the most important – and underrated – ingredients in any successful venture. If you’re not having fun, then it’s probably time to call it quits and try something else.

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.

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.

Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.

Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.

You know, not to sound corny or nuthin‘, but I felt like a fighter comin‘ up, man. I felt like, you know, I’m being attacked for this reason or that reason, and I gotta fight my way through this.

The longer I live, the more I feel that true repose consists in ‚renouncing‘ one’s own self, by which I mean making up one’s mind to admit that there is no importance whatever in being ‚happy‘ or ‚unhappy‘ in the usual meaning of the words.

Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music.

The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible.

Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.

Thirty-three-years-old, still creating art. It’s rage, it’s creativity, it’s pain, it’s hurt, but it’s the opportunity to still have my voice get out there through music.

I used to worry about every little thing, trying to figure out every problem. Well, I realize now how foolish that was. I was no more in control of my life than the man on the moon.

I feel the emotion that life conjures up and the songs I write get me closer to my feelings and realising who I am. It’s a natural process.

I am God’s vessel. But my greatest pain in life is that I will never be able to see myself perform live.

Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that’s real power.

When you are fitted in a racing car and you race to win, second or third place is not enough.

You can become an even more excellent person by constantly setting higher and higher standards for yourself and then by doing everything possible to live up to those standards.

I was in a terrible mess in my childhood.

A man’s worth is no greater than his ambitions.

Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

Not being beautiful was the true blessing. Not being beautiful forced me to develop my inner resources. The pretty girl has a handicap to overcome.

Playing in MLS was a great experience. It has boosted my confidence and I feel I have matured as a player.

I guess we all like to be recognized not for one piece of fireworks, but for the ledger of our daily work.

Diligence is the mother of good fortune.

Wine gives a man nothing… it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.

Crime when it succeeds is called virtue.

I had the classic 40 meltdown. I did. It’s embarrassing. It was pretty funny. But then I recovered. To me, it was like a second adolescence. Hormonally, my body was changing, my mind was changing, and so my relationship to myself and the world around me came to this assault of finiteness.

I have seen how leaders rule by intimidation. Leaders who demonize and dehumanize entire groups of people often do so because they have nothing else to offer. And I have seen how places that stifle the voices and dismiss the potential of their citizens are diminished: how they are less vital, less hopeful, less free.

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

For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.

I didn’t want to be a fashion designer, and for a good half of my career I didn’t like it. I always wanted to do other things.

There’s different kinds of laughs. It’s like a baseball lineup: this guy’s your power hitter, this guy gets on base, this guy works out walks. If everybody does their job, we’re gonna win.

In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm… in the real world all rests on perseverance.

The advice I’ve been giving to people all my life – that you may not be interested in the dialectic but the dialectic is interested in you; you can’t give up politics, it won’t give you up – was the advice I should have been taking myself.

Nurture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.

People always say when they meet me that I’m not what they expect. I assume they think I’m this super dark and depressing guy, but I like to channel all of those emotions into my work.

I will prepare and some day my chance will come.

I criticize by creation – not by finding fault.

Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say, for one, that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow-men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet to be developed.

Sometimes when you make a film you can go away for three months and then come back and live your life. But this struck a much deeper chord. I don’t have the ability yet to speak about it in an objective.

And winning is a huge thing for me.

If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.

I disagree with everything I used to say.

Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.

I don’t have any secrets I need kept any more.