I used to think as I looked out on the Hollywood night, ‚There must be thousands of girls sitting alone like me dreaming of being a movie star.‘ But I’m not going to worry about them. I’m dreaming the hardest.

An ass may bray a good while before he shakes the stars down.

We may stumble and fall but shall rise again; it should be enough if we did not run away from the battle.

Founding a company is hard. Most of it isn’t smooth. You’ll have to make very hard decisions. You have to fire a few people. Therefore, if you don’t believe in your mission, giving up is easy. The majority of founders give up. But the best founders don’t give up.

It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.

Most people dream a dream when they are asleep. But to be a writer, you have to dream while you are awake, intentionally. So I get up early in the morning, 4 o’clock, and I sit at my desk and what I do is just dream. After three or four hours, that’s enough. In the afternoon, I run. The next day, the dream will continue.

While on top of Everest, I looked across the valley towards the great peak Makalu and mentally worked out a route about how it could be climbed. It showed me that even though I was standing on top of the world, it wasn’t the end of everything. I was still looking beyond to other interesting challenges.

The resolve of our great nation is being tested. But make no mistake, we will show the world that we will pass the test.

I always feel like it’s two key ingredients when it comes to following your dreams, making something happen that the average person deems difficult. If you truly believe it, that’s step one. Step two, is, you know, the hard work that goes along with it.

The greatest story of all is Colonel Sanders. He didn’t start until he was sixty-six on a freeway bypass for his chicken shop. Anything is possible!

I always try to do as much as I can do. I’m never a person that does not enough, because I’d regret not doing enough and think I probably could have done more. I probably go too far and have to reel myself back in, which works in some things, and other things it doesn’t work.

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.

So long as a man imagines that he cannot do this or that, so long as he is determined not to do it; and consequently so long as it is impossible to him that he should do it.

Before finding music, I didn’t have too many aspirations. I wanted to hang out, make a little money from whatever I had to do.

Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.

There is no failure except in no longer trying.

I can understand how some people might resent me for having the audacity to continue playing music, but it’d take a lot more than that to stop me from doing it. I started Foo Fighters because I didn’t want to retreat.

I knew I wasn’t going to be a rocket scientist – let’s not be fools – but I wasn’t going to be a bum.

Once you say you’re going to settle for second, that’s what happens to you in life.

Plagiarism is always the biggest thing in Hollywood.

I wanted to be in a punk band before I had even heard any punk music.

It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go.

The man who knows it can’t be done counts the risk, not the reward.

I have no interest in Shakespeare and all that British nonsense… I just wanted to get famous and all the rest is hogwash.

Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure.

When I do something, I do it full steam ahead.

People say ‚I want to be rich‘. The question is, ‚Are you willing to do what it takes?‘

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

I grew up where, when a door closed, a window didn’t open. The only thing I had was cracks. I’d do everything to get through those cracks – scratch, claw, bite, push, bleed. Now the opportunity is here. The door is wide open, and it’s as big as a garage.

Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.

The science of psychology has been far more successful on the negative than on the positive side… It has revealed to us much about man’s shortcomings, his illnesses, his sins, but little about his potentialities, his virtues, his achievable aspirations, or his psychological health.

Our patience will achieve more than our force.

Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.

Mickey Mouse popped out of my mind onto a drawing pad 20 years ago on a train ride from Manhattan to Hollywood at a time when business fortunes of my brother Roy and myself were at lowest ebb and disaster seemed right around the corner.

One of the huge imbalances in life is the disparity between your daily existence, with its routines and habits, and the dream you have within yourself of some extraordinarily satisfying way of living.

Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.

No sooner said than done – so acts your man of worth.

You have to dream before your dreams can come true.

What is success? I think it is a mixture of having a flair for the thing that you are doing; knowing that it is not enough, that you have got to have hard work and a certain sense of purpose.

At one point he decided enough was enough.

Sure it’s a big job; but I don’t know anyone who can do it better than I can.

I think a big test we all face in life on a regular basis is that discouragement test. Life’s not always fair, but I believe if you keep doing the right thing, God will get you to where you are.

Finite to fail, but infinite to venture.

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.

I think the form, the Hollywood movie, I think the quality is obviously always going to be there and I think that the question of taste, there’s always a question of taste.

I hope to stand firm enough to not go backward, and yet not go forward fast enough to wreck the country’s cause.

I can no longer obey; I have tasted command, and I cannot give it up.

I can never be safe; I always try and go against the grain. As soon as I accomplish one thing, I just set a higher goal. That’s how I’ve gotten to where I am.

My mother, I suppose, is still a main figure in my life because her life was so sad and unfair, and she so brave, but also because she was determined to make me into the Sunday-school-recitation little girl I was, from the age of seven or so, fighting not to be.

As a man sow, shall he reap. and I know that talk is cheap. But the heat of the battle is as sweet as the victory.

We’re all dreamers.

My mother was determined to make us independent. When I was four years old, she stopped the car a few miles from our house and made me find my own way home across the fields. I got hopelessly lost.

I know that I always wanted things. I was always proud of my people, proud of my home, but I always wanted more. I think most people do.

What I admire most about Hillary is that she never buckles under pressure. She never takes the easy way out. And Hillary Clinton has never quit on anything in her life. And when I think about the kind of president that I want for my girls and all our children, that’s what I want.

It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.

If you look at my job, my union card, it says ‚actor.‘ It don’t say nothing about celebrity, movie star, nothing like that, and that’s one thing that keeps me humble.

Failure is not an option. Everyone has to succeed.

I pity the fool who just gives up.

Positional leaders ignore the fact that every person has hopes, dreams, desires, and goals of his own. And leaders must bring their vision and the aspirations of the people they lead together in a way that benefits everyone.