If you look at my life, generally, I’ve been put in situations which were difficult and which I conquered.

It is really very important while you are young to live in an environment in which there is no fear. Most of us, as we grow older, become frightened; we are afraid of living, afraid of losing a job, afraid of tradition, afraid of what the neighbours, or what the wife or husband would say, afraid of death.

I was married a few times, and one of my husbands was jealous of me writing.

Failure means a stripping away of the inessential.

At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures – be what he is. And, above all, accept these things.

I didn’t try to copy my dad or fit into the pressure or the mold that everybody tried to make me fit into.

I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict.

Don’t be afraid to see what you see.

You fail only if you stop writing.

However happy people say they are, nobody is satisfied: we always have to be with the prettiest woman, buy a bigger house, change cars, desire what we do not have.

I am not happy, and the quest for happiness as a principal objective is not part of my world. Of course, ever since I can remember, I have done what I felt like doing.

With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.

I hoped to be able to write a novel which would enable me to live on it while I wrote the next.

What is normal? Normal was yesterday. If you lose a leg, one day you’re hopping around on one leg, so you know the difference.

My interest in life comes from setting myself huge, apparently unachievable challenges and trying to rise above them.

You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.

Life is about growing and improving and getting better.

The good things of prosperity are to be wished; but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.

While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.

Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.

When times are bad is when the real entrepreneurs emerge.

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

I think that we have opportunities all around us – sometimes we just don’t recognize them.

My view is that at a younger age your optimism is more and you have more imagination etc. You have less bias.

I love having my hands in the dirt. It is never a science and always an art. There are no rules. And if it comes down to me versus that weed I’m trying to pull out of the ground that doesn’t want to come out? I know I’ll win.

Self-pity in its early stage is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.

So many people live with anger and unforgiveness, and many of them are Christians.

When you’re in hell, you forget how great you really are because you’re suffering and you forget the great things you’ve done.

College isn’t in everyone’s hearts. I am living proof, though, that school doesn’t mess up your plans. It gives you more experiences to write about.

It’s normal for human beings to identify with their own separate self. The problem is that we get caught in that notion of ourself as a separate individual and caught in that individual self’s agenda.

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

Some people can just let things go, but I can’t, especially if there’s something that worries me or makes me sad.

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

My honour was not yielded, but conquered merely.

Our Creator expects His children everywhere to educate themselves.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

If you know me, and you call me Stefani, you don’t really know me at all.

In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing.

I had a lovers quarrel with the world.

The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.

The world is put back by the death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar gifts to conventionality.

When you create circumstances together, when you try everything, then you can lose. But you need to show the importance.

You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.

I was in a terrible mess in my childhood.

The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.

Our work is never over.

As I followed my dream – stayed in-Spirit, that is, inspired – I made more money in the first year after I gave up my employment than I had made in the previous 35 years of my life.

I’ve written some great things. That’s a gift, but there’s consequences. Yeah, you get this great work, but you suffer. You really, really suffer.

I imagine I will be less involved in film and be focused more on family and foreign affairs.

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.

One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!

But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

I always say this about my music, and music in general: Music is like a time capsule. Each album reflects what I’m going through or what’s going on in my life at that moment.

I’m not looking to freak people out – eating rodents or bugs. I don’t do that anymore.

It’s an offseason. These days are valuable for everybody.

I’m not resigned, but I’m realistic too. The statistics in my case are very poor. Not many people come through esophageal cancer and live to talk about it, or not for long. And the other wager is, the part of the wager, it’s a certainty you’ll have a terrible time and you may wish you were dying because it’s an awful process.

First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. Then proceed to improve on the worst.

We acquire the strength we have overcome.