I loved what I did. I could’ve been secretary of state for ever.

Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.

I mean, what would I be doing if I couldn’t write? But that fortunately hasn’t proved to be the case and I can read any day. I still read a lot, and I can write any day, but much more slowly and fewer words.

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.

I’d have stopped writing years ago if it were for the money.

Many people have an intense feeling about what they’re best at. Too often, they’re driven away from it by other people.

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.‘

When I stop working the rest of the day is posthumous. I’m only really alive when I’m writing.

Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.

Baseball was, is and always will be to me the best game in the world.

When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity.

It doesn’t matter if you want to be a teacher, an astronaut, or a reggaeton singer, you need to study.

Everybody could be an entrepreneur, but very few will become very rich entrepreneurs.

Ambition has become a dirty word, and I believe it is a great evolutionary force for the positive. If people fail or go astray in their ambition I can live with it but not with people lowering their expectations, wasting time, slacking off and glorifying failure and stupidity.

It’s important to love in hip hop.

Enthusiasm is the most important thing in life.

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.

Those who are believed to be most abject and humble are usually most ambitious and envious.

I love to take, process and share photos – it fills me up.

You want to do good things, and once you’ve done a couple of good things in a row, you think ‚Well gee, let’s not mess this up.‘ But I am lucky at this point that I have something I really love to do, and it completely holds my attention. I never feel frustrated by it.

It’s really annoying for me. That’s not what I’m playing for, to be the face of the NBA or to be this or that or to take LeBron’s throne or whatever.

It doesn’t matter where you come from, what you have or don’t have, what you lack, or what you have too much of. But all you need to have is faith in God, an undying passion for what you do and what you choose to do in this life, and a relentless drive and the will to do whatever it takes to be successful in whatever you put your mind to.

As soon as I accomplish one goal, I replace it with another one. I try not to get too far ahead of myself. I just say to myself, ‚All right, well, I’d like to headline a tour,‘ and then when I get there, we’ll see what my next goal is.

I happened to come along in the music business when there was no trend.

It seems like when I was growing up there was more compromise, wanting to work with each other, and I think all of them – all of the lawmakers – have hearts to do what’s right, and they all are passionate about it.

Gold is a treasure, and he who possesses it does all he wishes to in this world, and succeeds in helping souls into paradise.

I don’t know who I would have been if I never watched MotoGP.

Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure, only death can stop it.

Though ambition in itself is a vice, it often is also the parent of virtue.

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

Who does not desire such a victory by which we shall join places in our Kingdom, so far divided by nature, and for which we shall set up trophies in another conquered world?

If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.

Had I pursued my education long enough to learn all the conventional dos and don’ts of starting a business, I often wonder how different my life and career might have been.

The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.

People have asked me, ‚What would you have done if you hadn’t gone into the Army?‘ I’d say I’d probably be a bus driver. I don’t know.

Nashville is my home, and the reason why I get to do what I love.

Music is really driving my whole life.

I’m a workin‘ girl.

I always wanted more – more of everything.

I was a sociology major. And it had nothing to do necessarily with law, which is ultimately – I went to law school. But what I tried to do was choose something that I was passionate about or something that I cared about.

The McLaren prizes can only help me in my quest to ultimately reach Formula One.

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.

I would love to continue in music, with writing… but I am not the kind of person who will hang around if I start to become irrelevant. If that happens, I will bow down gracefully, raise my kids, and have a garden. And I am going to let my hair go gray when I am older. I don’t need to be blonde when I’m 60!

I’m proud to be an actor. See, as an actor, you live longer. Football players, the brain and all that stuff, ooh-eee, that’s not good.

I listen to music all day every day. I can’t not listen to music. It’s kind of scary how much I listen to music, but it’s what I love, and it’s all I care about, so I’m good with it.

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.

It takes up enough of my time and interest just working on comedy. I just enjoy it and love doing it.

Once I get on a puzzle, I can’t get off.

The ruling passion, be it what it will. The ruling passion conquers reason still.

In the world today many people rightfully feel entitled to have success and the good things in life, but they usually understand it will require sacrifice and hard work.

Being a stand-up is my mission in life; it’s my passion. My ongoing goal is to simply be funny, on my own, in front of a roomful of strangers.

Throughout my 20s and early 30s, I had jobs that I loved. I worked in city government. I ran a youth organization. I served as an associate dean at a university. And I couldn’t imagine how a baby would fit into all of that.

I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents‘ garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees.

The immigration issue is, I recognize, one that generates a lot of passion, but it does not make sense for us to want to push talent out.

For me, I don’t want to cheat the game by saying, or kind of doing lip service by saying, I want to be the greatest ever. I want to be able to show it.

I love everything about my job, except being away from the kids.

The album requires a certain focus of mine that I can’t really explain – let’s just say it’s all I can really do while I’m doing it.

Without football, my life is worth nothing.

There’s no reason why I can’t be a mogul. When I step into a room and I’m there to have a conversation, if it pertains to business, I want to be respected as a guy who knows what he’s talking about. And that, to me, holds more weight than anything else.

God didn’t make me to make movies, flex muscles, buy gold. What you love the most becomes your God… If I never make another dollar, my life is complete.

Everything I have, my career, my success, my family, I owe to America.