I just do the best I can and write something interesting, to tell stories in an interesting way and move forward from there.

Keep in mind that no matter how perfectly you get your life in order, you will never be rid of all your problems. Problems are a way of life, always have been, always will be. But how you elect to view those problems is all up to you.

Art is man’s expression of his joy in labor.

Shun no toil to make yourself remarkable by some talent or other; yet do not devote yourself to one branch exclusively. Strive to get clear notions about all. Give up no science entirely; for science is but one.

The older I get the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking first things first. A process which often reduces the most complex human problem to a manageable proportion.

Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.

Ambition can creep as well as soar.

The problem with meditating is I generally go to sleep, and that’s because I’m doing it wrong.

I try to not focus on what people expect from me.

Let each become all that he was created capable of being.

Freedom is not procured by a full enjoyment of what is desired, but by controlling the desire.

We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers – but never blame yourself. It’s never your fault. But it’s always your fault, because if you wanted to change you’re the one who has got to change.

Doing collections, doing fashion is like a non-stop dialogue.

Inspiration is hard to come by. You have to take it where you find it.

People disparage knowing and the intellectual life, and urge doing. I am content with knowing, if only I could know.

I like being a writer.

Life is a lively process of becoming.

I think whether you’re having setbacks or not, the role of a leader is to always display a winning attitude.

I was never particularly fond of my voice.

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

Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding.

The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.

Just as food eaten without appetite is a tedious nourishment, so does study without zeal damage the memory by not assimilating what it absorbs.

When facing a difficult task, act as though it is impossible to fail. If you are going after Moby Dick, take along the tartar sauce.

I just have always felt that people don’t change, circumstances change.

I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone.

If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.

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.

It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.

Even after a bad harvest there must be sowing.

So many people have this idea: I want to achieve something great or be somebody great. And they neglect the step that leads to greatness. They don’t honor this step at this moment because they have this idea of some future moment where they are going to be great.

The secret of success is constancy to purpose.

I love getting out of my comfort zone.

Fight with a happy heart.

If you have the ability to pick yourself up by the bootstraps and start over, you come out stronger because you learn from whatever mistakes you made.

If I wish to compose or write or pray or preach well, I must be angry. Then all the blood in my veins is stirred, and my understanding is sharpened.

Failure is not an option. Everyone has to succeed.

Climbing to the top demands strength, whether it is to the top of Mount Everest or to the top of your career.

You know those things that you throw the twigs into and it spits them out? That’s what I do. The branches are like life, and I throw them into my head and some of it comes out as humor.

Any good piece of material like Shakespeare ought to be open to reinterpretation.

It’s so tedious writing cookbooks or writing the recipes because I’ve never been much of a measurer. But to write a book, you have to measure everything.

You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.

I think I hate cynicism more than anything else. It’s the curse of our age, and I want to avoid it at all costs.

Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.

We may never be strong enough to be entirely nonviolent in thought, word and deed. But we must keep nonviolence as our goal and make strong progress towards it.

Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.

I notice that my characters go out to dinner and have fun and take these great trips, but I spend so much time on their lives, I don’t have much of a personal life of my own. I have to sort of remember to fill out that little notebook on me.

Success is not a stop sign.

We are all hungry and thirsty for concrete images. Abstract art will have been good for one thing: to restore its exact virginity to figurative art.

As far as a glass ceiling, I feel that all you can do is give it your absolute best with whatever gifts the universe has given you. And if you make it in some way that other people can recognize, that’s fine. But even if you don’t quote-unquote make it, you’re fine if you’ve given it your whole heart and soul.

I think history is collective memories. In writing, I’m using my own memory, and I’m using my collective memory.

Never confuse motion with action.

In my next incarnation, I want to be a writer.

Happiness is a ball after which we run wherever it rolls, and we push it with our feet when it stops.

Scientists have to have a metaphor. All scientists start with imagination.

I write because writing is something that I have to do. And it doesn’t matter whether people like it or not. When I write, I feel the pressure and anxiety that come with taking an empty piece of paper and trying to fill it with something from your own consciousness.

All of my writing is God-given.

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

To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.

Everybody has a creative potential and from the moment you can express this creative potential, you can start changing the world.