I started writing at the kitchen table after midnight. It took ten months to finish that first book; I sent it to a publisher and I got some kind of prize, so it was like a dream – I was surprised to find it happening.

I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out.

Even when folks are hitting you over the head, you can’t stop marching. Even when they’re turning the hoses on you, you can’t stop.

In 1995, I was diagnosed with cancer, and I had to practice what I preached. I had always said to ‚believe in God‘ and ‚don’t give up‘ to little kids who had been diagnosed with cancer. I then thought if I can’t call on that same God and same strength that I told people about, I would be a liar and a phony.

I knew I wanted to do something creative. I didn’t think I’d have the luxury of doing something like that, because I didn’t know anyone who had pursued anything they really adored, but I had dreams for singing or writing.

The short words are best, and the old words are the best of all.

You can’t learn to write in college. It’s a very bad place for writers because the teachers always think they know more than you do – and they don’t. They have prejudices. They may like Henry James, but what if you don’t want to write like Henry James? They may like John Irving, for instance, who’s the bore of all time.

Anytime someone tells me that I can’t do something, I want to do it more.

I plan on taking athletics as far as I can.

As a country, we can’t teach kids how to read and write when we got 18 years to do it. And that’s – that’s a disgrace.

I was in enough to get along with people. I was never socially inarticulate. Not a loner. And that saved my life, saved my sanity. That and the writing. But to this day I distrust anybody who thought school was a good time. Anybody.

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.

The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.

The best way out of a difficulty is through it.

I’ll never make it, it will never happen, because they’re never going to hear me ‚cause they’re screaming all the time.

Not every difficult and dangerous thing is suitable for training, but only that which is conducive to success in achieving the object of our effort.

At United, there are great traditions, which you can’t buy in one or two years. They are created by victories. You need to prove again and again that you are better than the others. Manchester United have always done this, and are still doing it, so they are the best.

For me life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.

I can’t consciously explain how people feel after reading my books. All is too personal.

Let the people on both sides keep their self-possession, and just as other clouds have cleared away in due time, so will this, and this great nation shall continue to prosper as before.

I got the stern end of the stick. It was kind of that iron fist. I am who I am today because of my mother.

Don’t be too harsh to these poems until they’re typed. I always think typescript lends some sort of certainty: at least, if the things are bad then, they appear to be bad with conviction.

Naturally, my stories are about women – I’m a woman. I don’t know what the term is for men who write mostly about men. I’m not always sure what is meant by ‚feminist.‘ In the beginning, I used to say, ‚Well, of course I’m a feminist.‘ But if it means that I follow a kind of feminist theory, or know anything about it, then I’m not.

Frustration is a sign I am acting independently. The more you try your own way, the tighter the doors will stay closed.

The starting point of all achievement is desire.

I think you can have 10,000 explanations for failure, but no good explanation for success.

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.

I tried acting, liked it, and stuck with it. I saw it as the way I would keep that promise to myself of getting back at those who had made my school life a misery.

The Bible says to ‚fear not,‘ but this doesn’t mean you should never feel scared. It means when you do feel fear, keep going forward and do what you are supposed to do. Or as I like to say, do it afraid.

Well, I wouldn’t say that I was in the great class, but I had a great time while I was trying to be great.

If a whole bunch of people want to make your life a living hell, they’re gonna do it.

Thanks to my fans that have been with me from the beginning, I was able to sell out arenas on my own.

We are going to transform Britain’s rail system from the worst in the world to the best. If you can do a few things like that, when the body gives out, you can say you’ve lived a good life.

Diligence is the mother of good luck.

When I was a teenager, I thought how great it would be if only I could write novels in English. I had the feeling that I would be able to express my emotions so much more directly than if I wrote in Japanese.

The unyielding resistance of the Cuban patriots is symbolized by our 5 Heroes. They shall never back down! They shall never surrender!

Sometimes people write novels and they just be so wordy and so self-absorbed.

I couldn’t have written things like ‚Low‘ and ‚Heroes,‘ those particular albums, if it hadn’t have been for Berlin and the kind of atmosphere I felt there.

I have my favorite cat, who is my paperweight, on my desk while I am writing.

Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others.

Writing has always had that tactile quality for me. It’s a physical experience.

Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I’ll show you someone who has overcome adversity.

You shall, I question not, find a way to the top if you diligently seek for it; for nature hath placed nothing so high that it is out of the reach of industry and valor.

When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.

Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

My honour was not yielded, but conquered merely.

‚They‘ are the people that don’t believe in you, that say that you won’t succeed. We stay away from ‚They.‘

Sometimes, reading a blog, which I do infrequently, I see that generations of Americans have been wilfully crippled, and can no longer spell or write a sentence.

I know the blessing of having a dad who played 16 years in the league. That experience, and seeing him as an example, let me know that it’s possible. It’s not easy, but it’s possible.

We are twice armed if we fight with faith.

When I’m writing, I don’t feel neurotic. So it’s better for the family if I’m working.

People have to go through trials and tribulations to get where they at. Do your thing – continue to rock it – because obviously, God wants you here.

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

With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.

We are motivated by a keen desire for praise, and the better a man is the more he is inspired by glory. The very philosophers themselves, even in those books which they write in contempt of glory, inscribe their names.

In all seriousness, people think that it’s the ideas that are important. Well, everyone has ideas, all the time. I tend to write mine down and remember them, but at some point you have to apply the bum to the seat and knock out about sixty five thousand words – that’s how long a novel is.

I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the promised land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land.

I’m the most stubborn person I know.

The left paw has done me well over the years. I’m not a scientist, I’m a martial artist.

If at first you don’t succeed, then skydiving definitely isn’t for you.

He who has courage and faith will never perish in misery!