I don’t lose any sleep at night over the potential for failure. I cannot even spell the word.

Life is just one damned thing after another.

Nothing’s ever easy as long as you go on living.

I’d be so bored if I wasn’t going out there, knowing that I could still do it. So, I’m going to work hard to be ready to go, and I still plan on playing for a long time.

I have never been bewildered for long in any fight with our enemies – I was Armed with Insight.

It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.

Why should anybody be interested in some old man who was a failure?

It was clear to me that if I could get through Princeton at the top of my class, I could do anything in the world.

I think my vice would be outdoing myself.

To survive it is often necessary to fight and to fight you have to dirty yourself.

In my career as a director, there’s always been some point where you get halfway through it, or three-quarters, and you go: ‚What is this thing all about, and why am I telling the story? Does anybody really care about seeing this?‘ At that time you have to say: ‚OK, forget that and just go ahead.‘

Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.

March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life’s path.

Every noble work is at first impossible.

The last three or four reps is what makes the muscle grow. This area of pain divides the champion from someone else who is not a champion. That’s what most people lack, having the guts to go on and just say they’ll go through the pain no matter what happens.

Anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve.

Give a boy address and accomplishments and you give him the mastery of palaces and fortunes where he goes.

The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it, as long as you really believe 100 percent.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

When I was 5, some financial things happened, and I moved seven times in a year. We moved from apartment to apartment, sometimes living with friends. My mom would always say, ‚Don’t get comfortable, because we may not be here long.‘

We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay – and rise!

Hope is a waking dream.

If a leader doesn’t convey passion and intensity then there will be no passion and intensity within the organization and they’ll start to fall down and get depressed.

What is normal? Normal was yesterday. If you lose a leg, one day you’re hopping around on one leg, so you know the difference.

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

I don’t have much positive to say about motor neuron disease, but it taught me not to pity myself because others were worse off, and to get on with what I still could do. I’m happier now than before I developed the condition.

People think that at the top there isn’t much room. They tend to think of it as an Everest. My message is that there is tons of room at the top.

Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.

Because, you know, resilience – if you think of it in terms of the Gold Rush, then you’d be pretty depressed right now because the last nugget of gold would be gone. But the good thing is, with innovation, there isn’t a last nugget. Every new thing creates two new questions and two new opportunities.

If we’re really honest with ourselves, most of us will admit that we want to impress people, and this is what’s causing us to do what we do.

Begin – to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.

Whatever you have, you must either use or lose.

So long as a man imagines that he cannot do this or that, so long as he is determined not to do it; and consequently so long as it is impossible to him that he should do it.

Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.

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

Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.

Apply yourself both now and in the next life. Without effort, you cannot be prosperous. Though the land be good, You cannot have an abundant crop without cultivation.

I wanted to use my fame and this face that everyone knows so well to help uplift and inspire people around the world.

People respond when you tell them there is a great future in front of you, you can leave your past behind.

We’re going to be OK because of the American people. They have more grit, determination and courage than you can imagine.

I find a lot of inspiration through visuals. When I was 12, I saw Aurora’s ‚Runaway‘ music video. Something inside me clicked, like, ‚That is what I want to do, no matter whether it goes anywhere or not.‘

Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it.

We must open the doors of opportunity. But we must also equip our people to walk through those doors.

You can get help from teachers, but you are going to have to learn a lot by yourself, sitting alone in a room.

I worked with someone who told me they’d never like me. But for some reason, I just felt like I needed her approval. So I started changing myself to please her. It made me stop being social and friendly. I was so unhappy.

I’m convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they’re stones that don’t matter. As long as you’re breathing, it’s never too late to do some good.

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

After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.

In the book of Gaga, fame is in your heart, fame is there to comfort you, to bring you self-confidence and worth whenever you need it.

I put my flaws on front street. So the world accepted my flaws, so I don’t have any flaws.

It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.

Critics only make you stronger. You have to look at what they are saying as feedback. Sometimes the feedback helps, and other times, it’s just noise that can be a distraction.

Self-centered leaders manipulate when they move people for personal benefit. Mature leaders motivate by moving people for mutual benefit.

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

I can’t do nothing just a little.

You have to be someone.

I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs.

Every man should know, if you’re comfortable and you like it, you should do it. Everyone always worries about what the girls think, what the guys think. If you like it, do it.

I do have motivation. A lot of motivation.

I have to write because if I don’t get something down then after a while I feel it’s going to bang the side of my head off.

We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans – because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That’s why we paint, that’s why we dare to love someone – because we have the impulse to explain who we are.