If you are lucky enough to find something that you love, and you have a shot at being good at it, don’t stop, don’t put it down.

Really, you don’t lose until you stop trying.

One of the wonderful things about Oprah: She teaches you to keep on stepping.

You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.

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.

Men shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear.

It has always been my belief that a man should do his best, regardless of how much he receives for his services, or the number of people he may be serving or the class of people served.

It takes up enough of my time and interest just working on comedy. I just enjoy it and love doing it.

I was a fighting machine with a will of iron.

Trouble has no necessary connection with discouragement. Discouragement has a germ of its own, as different from trouble as arthritis is different from a stiff joint.

If I’m gonna write songs about my exes, they can write songs about me. That’s how it works.

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

My enthusiasm seems to cause my world to endlessly offer me cooperative, co-creating experiences. I’m willing and I’m eager, and not just about my writing – I feel the same way about staying in shape, enjoying my family, giving a lecture, or whatever it may be.

There is no failure except in no longer trying.

I take inspiration from everyone and everything. I’m inspired by current champions, former champions, true competitors, people dedicated to their dream, hard workers, dreamers, believers, achievers.

Know what you want to do, hold the thought firmly, and do every day what should be done, and every sunset will see you that much nearer to your goal.

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.

We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay – and rise!

Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.

Quitting doesn’t enter my mind.

Opportunity dances with those already on the dance floor.

My kind of composing is more like the work of a gardener. The gardener takes his seeds and scatters them, knowing what he is planting but not quite what will grow where and when – and he won’t necessarily be able to reproduce it again afterwards either.

If the leader is filled with high ambition and if he pursues his aims with audacity and strength of will, he will reach them in spite of all obstacles.

Let me tell you something about Tunechi – about that boy. That boy comes to the studio every day and grind as if he doesn’t have a dollar in his pocket.

I know I’m stronger in the songs than I really am. Sometimes I need to hear it myself. We all need to hear those empowering songs to remind us.

Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.

The influence of ‚Hidden Fortress‘ comes up a lot because it was printed in a book once. The truth is, the only thing I was inspired by was the fact that it’s told from the point of view of two peasants, who get mixed up with a samurai and princess and a lot of very high-level people.

You aren’t going to find anybody that’s going to be successful without making a sacrifice and without perseverance.

Ability is nothing without opportunity.

You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.

I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but should get you pretty near.

I can honestly say that I was never affected by the question of the success of an undertaking. If I felt it was the right thing to do, I was for it regardless of the possible outcome.

I have feelings too. I am still human. All I want is to be loved, for myself and for my talent.

I have certain guys who I looked up to. Jordan, Kobe, those guys. Passing that on to doing my part to kind of keep that influence of basketball where it should be is kind of why I play the game.

I love tango, and I used to dance when I was young.

I’m gonna be making records anyway, even if I had to sell ‚em out of the trunk of my car. I’m that kind of musician and singer.

Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.

I loved writing for kids, I loved talking to children about what I’d written, I don’t want to leave that behind.

All my life affection has been showered upon me, and every forward step I have made has been taken in spite of it.

If you’re in this business and you are scared, then you better do something else.

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.

When I heard ‚Jesus, Take the Wheel,‘ I was like, OK. Some people look at it as a song written for an American Idol, Carrie Underwood, who is wonderful. But when you’re a songwriter listening to a song, you hear something else. I heard that song, and wow.

Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.

Having listened to great songwriters like James Taylor and Carole King, I felt there was nothing new that was coming out that really represented me and the way I felt. So I started writing my own stuff.

When you are laboring for others let it be with the same zeal as if it were for yourself.

When you play, play hard; when you work, don’t play at all.

You want to do good things, and once you’ve done a couple of good things in a row, you think ‚Well gee, let’s not mess this up.‘ But I am lucky at this point that I have something I really love to do, and it completely holds my attention. I never feel frustrated by it.

You can be passionate about anything.

The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave.

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.

Somebody once asked me what my theory of life was, and I said, ‚Don’t try.‘ That fits the writing, too. I don’t try; I just type.

A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.

Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another.

Kites rise highest against the wind – not with it.

Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.

If a guy hits .300 every year, what does he have to look forward to? I always tried to stay around .190, with three or four RBI. And I tried to get them all in September. That way I always had something to talk about during the winter.

Practice yourself, for heaven’s sake in little things, and then proceed to greater.

I know a lot of people say they always believed they could get into F1, but I didn’t quite believe that, certainly not when I was 7 and maybe not until I was 14. It was always so far away.

The pursuit of science leads only to the insoluble.

Music is in my DNA!

And you find as a writer there are certain spots on the planet where you write better than others, and I believe in that. And New Orleans is one of them.