I was born in Harlem, raised in the South Bronx, went to public school, got out of public college, went into the Army, and then I just stuck with it.

There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome; to be got over.

I have only one understanding of development and of making success, and that’s by going step by step.

Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.

There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying.

I need music. It’s like my heartbeat, so to speak. It keeps me going no matter what’s going on – bad games, press, whatever!

Quitting doesn’t enter my mind.

These times are so hard, and they’re getting even harder.

I wrote some of the worst poetry west from the Mississippi River, but I wrote. And I finally sometimes got it right.

For a true writer, each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.

If you choose to do something, attack it. You can hate me, but there’s one thing you can’t say about me – that I didn’t attack it.

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

It’s a piece of cake until you get to the top. You find you can’t stop playing the game the way you’ve always played it.

If patience is worth anything, it must endure to the end of time. And a living faith will last in the midst of the blackest storm.

The best way out is always through.

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

You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.

Americans never quit.

I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.

Glory lies in the attempt to reach one’s goal and not in reaching it.

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

A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.

It’s like a muscle – if you stop going to the gym or stop running, you get weak. The military teaches you these great values, but we don’t keep up the discipline on our own, and we lose it. So wherever you go, keep that discipline up.

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

Great is the power of habit. It teaches us to bear fatigue and to despise wounds and pain.

Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope.

I try to make it look easy, but the behind-the-scenes stuff is the challenge.

In all my work, I try to say – ‚You may be given a load of sour lemons, why not try to make a dozen lemon meringue pies?‘

How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?

Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.

When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.

He that can have patience can have what he will.

I pass my life in preventing the storm from blowing down the tent, and I drive in the pegs as fast as they are pulled up.

It’s physical. If you keep on writing for three years, every day, you should be strong. Of course you have to be strong mentally, also. But in the first place you have to be strong physically. That is a very important thing. Physically and mentally you have to be strong.

It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.

He that lives upon hope will die fasting.

Nothing’s ever easy as long as you go on living.

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

All great achievements require time.

Life is filled with detours and dead ends, trials and challenges of every kind. Each of us has likely had times when distress, anguish, and despair almost consumed us.

Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible.

Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.

The way of the Creative works through change and transformation, so that each thing receives its true nature and destiny and comes into permanent accord with the Great Harmony: this is what furthers and what perseveres.

Mentally, the only players who survive in the pros are the ones able to manage all their responsibilities. Everybody struggles in different ways.

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.

One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity.

Victory belongs to the most persevering.

People think because I’ve got some success, I’ve made it, but in my eyes it’s like, ‚How long has Jay Z been in the business? How many albums has he got?‘ Not that I’m trying to be Jay Z, but I am trying to be around for a long time.

After the first day of practice, there’s not one guy who’s playing at 100 percent or who feels great. Sometimes, getting up in the morning and brushing your teeth is the hardest part of the day – it just hurts.

Truth cannot be brought down; rather, the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountaintop to the valley. If you would attain to the mountaintop, you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices.

Life isn’t meant to be easy. It’s hard to take being on the top – or on the bottom. I guess I’m something of a fatalist. You have to have a sense of history, I think, to survive some of these things… Life is one crisis after another.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.

I think music is something that can, and should, be used to get you into different things because eventually what goes up must come down – we’re not going to be the number one group in the world forever – so you have to have something else to fall back on.

If anything is good for pounding humility into you permanently, it’s the restaurant business.

Don’t swap horses in crossing a stream.

I wanted to write when I was young, but people said it was impossible. Then my parents locked me in a mental institution – they said I was crazy and would never make a living from writing.

Why did I become Jackie Chan? Mostly because I work very hard. When people were sleeping, I was still training.

Any man who has had the job I’ve had and didn’t have a sense of humor wouldn’t still be here.

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

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

The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory.