I don’t really plan. I’m almost intuitive about things.

The risk for me would be in not taking one – that’s the only thing that’s really risky for me.

He who has a task to perform must know how to take sides, or he is quite unworthy of it.

The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.

Any man can call time out, but no man can say how long the time out will be.

We will burn that bridge when we come to it.

I can honestly say that I was never affected by the question of the success of an undertaking. If I felt it was the right thing to do, I was for it regardless of the possible outcome.

Never marry someone in hope that they’ll change later.

What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope?

As is the case with most people in this game, I am driven by financial motives and creative motives; the question I had to answer is which motive I will give priority to?

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.

I act on impulse and I go with my instincts.

My mom was on the United Way group that decides how to allocate the money and looks at all the different charities and makes the very hard decisions about where that pool of funds is going to go.

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.

I do not think psychoanalysis has a scientific basis. If we can’t explain why a cockroach decides to turn left, how can we explain why a human being decides to do something?

I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live and could not spare any more time for that one.

I got an album concept called ‚Exit Strategy,‘ that might be one of my last ones. It’s a term they use in business when you build companies. You create an exit strategy as you make a company. You don’t wait till you’re five years in it; you create a exit strategy as you make the company.

I only type every third night. I have no plan. My mind is a blank. I sit down. The typewriter gives me things I don’t even know I’m working on. It’s a free lunch. A free dinner. I don’t know how long it is going to continue, but so far there is nothing easier than writing.

Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others‘ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

Every man, every woman who has to take up the service of government, must ask themselves two questions: ‚Do I love my people in order to serve them better? Am I humble and do I listen to everybody, to diverse opinions in order to choose the best path?‘ If you don’t ask those questions, your governance will not be good.

I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn’t, than live as if there isn’t and to die to find out that there is.

Deep down, I know I have this intuition or instinct that a lot of creative people have, that their demons are also what make them create.

You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.

Where the stakes are the highest, in the war on terror, we cannot possibly succeed without extraordinary international cooperation. Effective international police actions require the highest degree of intelligence sharing, planning and collaborative enforcement.

I try to prepare for everything beyond the extent of preparation.

When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.

You’ve got to work things out in the cloakroom, and when you’ve got them worked out, you can debate a little before you vote.

Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.

Having unlimited choices can paralyze you creatively.

I’ve never gone wrong trusting my gut.

All of us knows, not what is expedient, not what is going to make us popular, not what the policy is, or the company policy – but in truth each of us knows what is the right thing to do. And that’s how I am guided.

It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.

Your emotions are very unstable and should never be the foundation for direction in your life.

I won’t do something unless I can get at least two or three good laughs out of it. If I can’t, it’s not gonna make the team.

Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye.

Between stimulus and response, there is a space where we choose our response.

We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.

Indecision may or may not be my problem.

I’m working on my life story. I’m not decided if it’s going to be a musical or a movie with music in it.

A woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes.

Wise men don’t need advice. Fools won’t take it.

Anything for the quick life, as the man said when he took the situation at the lighthouse.

I think that sexuality is only attractive when it’s natural and spontaneous.

When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice.

When I was running training, we would fire a couple of leaders from every SEAL team because they couldn’t lead. And 99.9% of the time, it wasn’t a question of their ability – it was a question of their ability to listen.

How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.

Founding a company is hard. Most of it isn’t smooth. You’ll have to make very hard decisions. You have to fire a few people. Therefore, if you don’t believe in your mission, giving up is easy. The majority of founders give up. But the best founders don’t give up.

To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage, or of principle.

A lot of people tell me a lot of things about my conduct, my game, my future… but I try to stay away from their words of wisdom. I don’t let it distract me. On the field, you will be facing the ball alone. If you fail, you will the only one to blame. So, you should be the one deciding for yourself.

The way to develop decisiveness is to start right where you are, with the very next question you face.

I don’t think I would run for president.

Don’t wait for the last judgment – it takes place every day.

Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.

Obviously I faced the possibility of not returning when first I considered going. Once faced and settled there really wasn’t any good reason to refer to it.

If you don’t like what you’re doing, then don’t do it.

I’m not a marketing person. I don’t ask myself questions. I go by instinct.

If you judge, investigate.

From the time I was a kid, I always knew something was going to happen to me. Didn’t know exactly what.

I always wanted to do things right and represent myself as somebody that took the art serious and someone that took the business serious also, so I had time to weigh the options and figure it out and do my best to create the situation that was ideal.

Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.