If it doesn’t work out there will never be any doubt that the pleasure was worth all the pain.

After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.

I hope my story inspires everyone out there to keep hustling and chasing their dreams.

Failure is not an option. Everyone has to succeed.

Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.

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

I can take it. The tougher it gets, the cooler I get.

I will never relent in defending America – whatever it takes.

Keep a good attitude and do the right thing even when it’s hard. When you do that you are passing the test. And God promises you your marked moments are on their way.

O, you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you, and I would have ended my life – it was only my art that held me back. Ah, it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I felt was within me.

Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dream.

Discontent, blaming, complaining, self-pity cannot serve as a foundation for a good future, no matter how much effort you make.

My childhood did not prepare me for the fact that the world is full of cruel and bitter things.

Diligence is the mother of good fortune.

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

Everybody has goals, aspirations or whatever, and everybody has been at a point in their life where nobody believed in them.

The ladder of success is never crowded at the top.

You have to be smart. The easy days are over.

A lost battle is a battle one thinks one has lost.

I went through a lot of battles in high school.

It’s in the difficult times that we’re growing and you can’t just rebuke everything hard. We’ve got to endure it and fight the good fight of faith and pass the test.

A jug fills drop by drop.

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.

Truth is mysterious, elusive, always to be conquered. Liberty is dangerous, as hard to live with as it is elating. We must march toward these two goals, painfully but resolutely, certain in advance of our failings on so long a road.

I’m on record that it didn’t really traumatize me to do away with some people.

Immense power is acquired by assuring yourself in your secret reveries that you were born to control affairs.

You can’t die with an unfinished book.

When times are bad is when the real entrepreneurs emerge.

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.

From my close observation of writers… they fall into two groups: 1) those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and 2) those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review.

If you stop struggling, then you stop life.

Finite to fail, but infinite to venture.

You must take the compromise to win, or else nothing. That means: you race or you do not.

Put your leaders in stressful scenarios. Make them figure out solutions under pressure. See if you can make them frustrated, angry, and flustered, and then demand decisive leadership from them. They will be challenged at first, but they will get better over time.

Sometimes it’s the journey that teaches you a lot about your destination.

Kings are not born: they are made by artificial hallucination.

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.

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.

Sooner or later we’re all someone’s dog.

Every time I think that I’m getting old, and gradually going to the grave, something else happens.

A pint of sweat, saves a gallon of blood.

Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.

America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.

The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.

When we make progress quickly, it feeds our emotions. Then, when there’s a period of waiting or we hit a plateau, we find out how committed we really are and whether we’re going to see things through to the finish or quit.

The only source of knowledge is experience.

You just wait. I’m going to be the biggest Chinese Star in the world.

If God treats you well by teaching you a disastrous lesson, you never forget it.

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

I like to take every day just searching my own heart, making sure that I’m on course, and I’m doing what God wants me to do. I’m real good with not looking to the critics and looking straight ahead.

Running taught me valuable lessons. In cross-country competition, training counted more than intrinsic ability, and I could compensate for a lack of natural aptitude with diligence and discipline. I applied this in everything I did.

I bade adieu to mechanical inventions, determined to devote the rest of my life to the study of the inventions of God.

Everybody accuses me of moving fast when I direct a picture. I don’t move fast, but I just keep moving.

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

My message to all the activists is to just keep going, and I know it really may seem impossible and hopeless sometimes – it always does – so you just have to keep going because if you try hard enough and long enough you will make a difference.

If someone you know makes a bad decision or uses bad judgment, it doesn’t mean you have to allow that to alter your attitude. Why should you allow anyone else’s bad decisions to send you into a tailspin of misery?

When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal.

I had a rough childhood coming up, and I just took all that negative energy and made it very positive for myself to drive me. I’m a very driven person. I have passion that almost scares people, just to be successful and make it no matter what.

I hate pain, despite my ability to tolerate it beyond all known parameters, which is not necessarily a good thing.

Eternal principles that govern happiness apply equally to all.

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.