I think if I keep working in the way that I am, from the heart and from passion and with love, well, the fruits of that will keep coming.

We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.

I want a president with a record of public service, someone whose life’s work shows our children that we don’t chase fame and fortune for ourselves: we fight to give everyone a chance to succeed.

Around every corner, always protect the engine that powers you.

The will is a beast of burden. If God mounts it, it wishes and goes as God wills; if Satan mounts it, it wishes and goes as Satan wills; Nor can it choose its rider… the riders contend for its possession.

The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?

Where there is love there is life.

Let my skin and sinews and bones dry up, together with all the flesh and blood of my body! I welcome it! But I will not move from this spot until I have attained the supreme and final wisdom.

This is the hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver.

Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.

The thornbush is the old obstacle in the road. It must catch fire if you want to go further.

Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive. They counted wrong.

Love always brings difficulties, that is true, but the good side of it is that it gives energy.

The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others.

The love we give away is the only love we keep.

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.

As a musician and a songwriter, it is an act of the ego to believe that other people might be interested in your point of view. But it is usually an empathetic nature that gets you going in the first place. Music keeps the heart porous in many ways.

Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.

The future is like heaven, everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there now.

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.

I have goals.

To feel not only submitted but willing to be anything or nothing as the Lord wills it – this is, in truth, to sing a song to our Well Beloved.

Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.

I write books back to back, and I work very hard on them.

I have said this many times, that there seems to be enough room in the world for mediocre men, but not for mediocre women, and we really have to work very, very hard.

We will naturally pursue our goals on the strength of our own resources, skills and enterprise. But, we know that we will be more successful when we do this in partnership with the world.

When I wake up, I expect things to be good. If they’re not, then I try to set about trying to make them as good as I can ‚cause I know I’m gonna have to live that day anyway. So why not try to make the most of it if you can? Some days, they pan out a little better than others, but you still gotta always just try.

I am impelled, not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession.

Energy, like the biblical grain of the mustard-seed, will remove mountains.

I had real plans for my next decade and felt I’d worked hard enough to earn it. Will I really not live to see my children married? To watch the World Trade Center rise again? To read – if not indeed write – the obituaries of elderly villains like Henry Kissinger and Joseph Ratzinger?

As long as somebody finances you, can make a film and get it seen any place and in any language; then, hopefully, it’s a success.

It doesn’t matter where you are coming from. All that matters is where you are going.

I believe in singing.

If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married.

I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.

Never regret what you don’t write.

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.

If my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn’t be here. I guarantee you that.

What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.

An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.

The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.

Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God – the rest will be given.

It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.

You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.

I had a good time boxing. I enjoyed it – and I may come back.

Lovers often invest their first meetings with retrospective significance, as if to try to conjure the elements of the numinous out of the stubborn witness of the everyday.

Nothing will work unless you do.

The sadness of the women’s movement is that they don’t allow the necessity of love. See, I don’t personally trust any revolution where love is not allowed.

As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information.

When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, ‚Why god? Why me?‘ and the thundering voice of God answered, ‚There’s just something about you that pisses me off.‘

If you start by promising what you don’t even have yet, you’ll lose your desire to work towards getting it.

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

Whatever possession we gain by our sword cannot be sure or lasting, but the love gained by kindness and moderation is certain and durable.

He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.

If you raise your children to feel that they can accomplish any goal or task they decide upon, you will have succeeded as a parent and you will have given your children the greatest of all blessings.

Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity.

Faith, there hath been many great men that have flattered the people who ne’er loved them.

Even though you are on the right track – you will get run over if you just sit there.

In the real world, children love me.

I have learned not to worry about love; but to honor its coming with all my heart.

Marriage is scary to me, man.