I grew up in a rural area called Vega Baja and I’m the first of so many talented people in this area to make it out. I take great pride to represent where I come from and I am able to show my fans, and everyone who listens and watches me, that anything is possible.

Remembering what you’ve been through and how that has strengthened your mindset can lift you out of a negative brain loop and help you bypass those weak, one-second impulses to give in. Even if you’re feeling low and beat down by life right now, I guarantee you can think of a time or two when you overcame odds and tasted success.

If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.

There’s a lack of people in power that are motivated by the idea of helping people.

The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

If what you are doing is not moving you towards your goals, then it’s moving you away from your goals.

An architect should live as little in cities as a painter. Send him to our hills, and let him study there what nature understands by a buttress, and what by a dome.

Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.

When I prepare, I am not messing around. I find the right places, the right people, and the right environment. Iceland is one of those places.

Never lose a holy curiosity.

Why do I like to write short stories? Well, I certainly didn’t intend to. I was going to write a novel. And still! I still come up with ideas for novels. And I even start novels. But something happens to them. They break up. I look at what I really want to do with the material, and it never turns out to be a novel.

Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs.

I always had faith in my creative capacity.

If you lose a big fight, it will worry you all of your life. It will plague you – until you get your revenge.

Ambition can creep as well as soar.

Members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir are not superhuman. They are ordinary people with ordinary frailties. But therein lies the power of their example.

Anyone can be a Superman, but nobody can be Jackie Chan.

My dad used to have an expression – ‚It is the lucky person who gets up in the morning, puts both feet on the floor, knows what they are about to do, and thinks it still matters.‘

Bayern want a decade of success like Barca. That’s OK if you have the money because it increases the possibility of success. But it’s not guaranteed.

I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.

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.

I have goals.

And poets, in my view, and I think the view of most people, do speak God’s language – it’s better, it’s finer, it’s language on a higher plane than ordinary people speak in their daily lives.

People don’t care about what someone says about you in a movie – or even what you say, right? They care about what you build. And if you can make something that makes people’s life better, then that’s something that’s really good.

I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name.

I’ve never had writer’s block.

Whatever you have, you must either use or lose.

I’d rather give my life than be afraid to give it.

Faced with what is right, to leave it undone shows a lack of courage.

People need motivation to do anything. I don’t think human beings learn anything without desperation.

Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours.

By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property.

To live without Hope is to Cease to live.

The difference between us and them, between you and success, is not that you never fail, but it’s how you recover from those failures – is that you keep getting up time and time again. You figure out what you did wrong, and then you make it right. I say that to my kids every day.

When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.

Young men and women, your education is ever important – to us, to you, and to God.

Rule number one is: Beat your team-mate.

What one has, one ought to use: and whatever he does he should do with all his might.

The shortest answer is doing the thing.

If a subject excites us, if it stirs our deepest curiosity, or if we have to learn because the stakes are high, we pay much more attention. What we absorb sinks in.

A boy carries out suggestions more wholeheartedly when he understands their aim.

If you enjoy living, it is not difficult to keep the sense of wonder.

Never, and I mean never, allow anyone else’s ideas of who you can or can’t become sully your dream or pollute your imagination. This is your territory, and a ‚Keep Out‘ sign is a great thing to erect at all entrances to your imagination.

My mother is a singer, my sisters all sing, my uncles are incredible singers and guitar players, so it’s just kind of been like my habitat.

Don’t think in the morning. That’s a big mistake that people make. They wake up in the morning and they start thinking. Don’t think. Just execute the plan. The plan is the alarm clock goes off, you get up, you go work out. Get some.

Everything negative – pressure, challenges – is all an opportunity for me to rise.

The cut of a garment speaks of intellect and talent and the color of temperament and heart.

Seventy percent of success in life is showing up.

Above anything else, I hate to lose.

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

I wish I could make music about politics. I feel like it’s such an art and a talent that I admire tremendously, but when I step into the studio, I step out of the real world, and it’s therapeutic.

I remember flying in, driving down 101 in a cab, and passing by all these tech companies like Yahoo! I remember thinking, ‚Maybe someday we’ll build a company. This probably isn’t it, but one day we will.‘

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

I break ground. I trailblaze.

The book that convinced me I wanted to be a writer was ‚Crime and Punishment‘. I put the thing down after reading it in a fever over two or three days… I said, ‚If this is what a book can be, then that is what I want to do.‘

So that’s the dissenter’s hope: that they are writing not for today but for tomorrow.

Always do whatever’s next.

I’ve always been surrounded by many great people and professors, but my family, especially my mom who was a teacher, was the person who encouraged me to study and pushed me to continue. When we’re young, we don’t understand why our parents bug us so much with school and doing homework, but it’s a blessing to have that support at home.

I try to use my experience and the fact that I grew up in the ghetto – I tell people you don’t have to rob or steal to get out of the ghetto.

If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.

I’m just going to say it: I’m pro-guilt. Guilt is good. Guilt helps us stay on track because it’s about our behavior. It occurs when we compare something we’ve done – or failed to do – with our personal values.