I was a bit challenged when I was younger to stay on the right path.

Only by contending with challenges that seem to be beyond your strength to handle at the moment you can grow more surely toward the stars.

Life is a lively process of becoming.

I was raised in a family where vulnerability was barely tolerated: no training wheels on our bicycles, no goggles in the pool, just get it done. And so I grew up not only with discomfort about my own vulnerability, I didn’t care for it in other people either.

The moment the alarm goes off is the first test; it sets the tone for the rest of the day. The test is not a complex one: when the alarm goes off, do you get up out of bed, or do you lie there in comfort and fall back to sleep? If you have the discipline to get out of bed, you win – you pass the test.

Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.

One of the powerful temptations is that of the cinema palace. The cinema has undoubtedly an enormous attraction for boys, and people are constantly cudgelling their brains how to stop it. But it is one of those things which would be very difficult to stop even if it were altogether desirable.

I don’t want to just revolve. I want to evolve. As a man, as a human, as a father, as a lover.

Genius always gives its best at first; prudence, at last.

Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.

The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there… and still on your feet.

As we advance in life we learn the limits of our abilities.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.

When I grew up, the Devil was a reason why I had a headache or the Devil was the reason I got mad today. We always blamed the Devil. I think today when I say the Enemy, I like to make it broader. Sometimes the Enemy can be our own thoughts.

Autobiographies are only useful as the lives you read about and analyze may suggest to you something that you may find useful in your own journey through life.

I was never really good at anything except for the ability to learn.

I just really believe people have to get hungry. I think maybe what we need to do, instead of trying to stuff our beliefs down people’s throats, is just pray for them to really be hungry and to see their neediness.

I let the American people down.

Your philosophy determines whether you will go for the disciplines or continue the errors.

When you put down the good things you ought to have done, and leave out the bad ones you did do well, that’s Memoirs.

It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.

Life is about growing and improving and getting better.

Songwriting is my way of channeling my feelings and my thoughts. Not just mine, but the things I see, the people I care about. My head would explode if I didn’t get some of that stuff out.

Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

I made a decision when my father passed away that I was going to be who God made me to be and not try to preach like my father.

The boy who is going to make a great man must not make up his mind merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a thousand repulses and defeats.

You have to be a bastard to make it, and that’s a fact. And the Beatles are the biggest bastards on earth.

For me, being raised in a free America made all the difference.

The main problem with writing in verse is, if your fourth line doesn’t come out right, you’ve got to throw four lines away and figure out a whole new way to attack the problem. So the mortality rate is terrific.

If you’re not producing as much as you consume, or perhaps a little more, then clearly we cannot use the big organization of our society for the purpose of keeping you alive, because your life does not benefit us, and it can’t be of very much use to yourself.

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

I have survivor’s curiosity, I guess.

Whatever I engage in, I must push inordinately.

I think I could go away tomorrow. I’ve already accomplished something. It’s such a selfish business that sometimes I get sick of myself.

Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it; courage which arises from a sense of duty acts; in a uniform manner.

Although the life of a person is in a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.

Whenever things go a bit sour in a job I’m doing, I always tell myself, ‚You can do better than this.‘

Remember that life’s big changes rarely give advance warning.

Libraries raised me.

The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking.

Imagine your family finally making it from nothing to something, and finally getting things going, and finally buying a beautiful house and taking care of your children – and the next day, it’s completely all gone. Zero. Boom. Flat broke. So that’s when I had to man up.

The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.

Live out of your imagination, not your history.

I do have motivation. A lot of motivation.

Take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly, and try another. But by all means, try something.

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.

I have discovered that just because we grow weaker physically as we age, it doesn’t mean that we must grow weaker spiritually.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

At the end of the day, I understand that life has road blocks, and life is like school – you’ll be tested; we gotta pass it.

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

I think writing really helps you heal yourself. I think if you write long enough, you will be a healthy person. That is, if you write what you need to write, as opposed to what will make money, or what will make fame.

Whatever is making you so angry, it’s time for you to give it to God and get over it.

Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.

I like to recede away from classifications. You might say that indicates a fundamental lack of commitment. I suppose that’s true to some degree.

I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future.

Fears are nothing more than a state of mind.

The most challenging project I’ve ever done, I think, is every single thing I’ve ever tried to do. It’s never easy.

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

Never interrupt someone doing what you said couldn’t be done.

Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.