I’m just a kid that defied the odds. I’m just a kid that ignored the doubt. I’m just a kid from a little place in Dublin, Ireland, that went all the way, and I’m going to continue to go all the way.

Being self-made means never making an excuse as to why you can’t take steps toward whatever your goal is.

What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

To do a dull thing with style-now that’s what I call art.

Have you not learned that strength comes to an ordinary soul when given an extraordinary calling?

Do all you can to make your dreams come true.

What is true of the individual will be tomorrow true of the whole nation if individuals will but refuse to lose heart and hope.

The thing I always say to people is this: ‚If you avoid failure, you also avoid success.‘

A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.

How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.

I kept writing not because I felt I was so good, but because I felt they were so bad, including Shakespeare, all those. The stilted formalism, like chewing cardboard.

If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.

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

The book that convinced me I wanted to be a writer was ‚Crime and Punishment‘. I put the thing down after reading it in a fever over two or three days… I said, ‚If this is what a book can be, then that is what I want to do.‘

The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most.

We have to wake up. We have to refuse to be a clone.

I don’t feel pressure in a negative way. I like pressure. I feel excitement and calm at the same time. No pressure, no diamonds. I want pressure: pressure creates drama, creates emotion.

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.

Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals.

To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.

Learned helplessness is the giving-up reaction, the quitting response that follows from the belief that whatever you do doesn’t matter.

The smart thing in the art world is to have one good idea and never have another.

Since God had commanded it, it was necessary that I do it. Since God commanded it, even if I had a hundred fathers and mothers, even if I had been a King’s daughter, I would have gone nevertheless.

When one has a great deal to put into it a day has a hundred pockets.

Even the best and biggest teams in the world do not reach finals of tournaments.

When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily I should have been in that band – or at least in a Pixies cover band.

I worked my way up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty.

It was patriotism, not communism, that inspired me.

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.

It was a personal decision for me to stand and say that cricket is all I have in life, there’s nothing I need to do other than cricket. If I want to achieve whatever I thought as a kid, I need to work hard and not let it go to waste.

Sporadic thoughts will pop into my head and I’ll have to go write something down, and the next thing you know I’ve written a whole song in an hour.

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.

I always thought Johnny Carson was just brilliant, and I used to watch him and all the comics that would be on the show every night – and I’d dream about it being me.

Part of the issue of achievement is to be able to set realistic goals, but that’s one of the hardest things to do because you don’t always know exactly where you’re going, and you shouldn’t.

Where much is expected from an individual, he may rise to the level of events and make the dream come true.

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.

I’m committed to the fight game.

All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.

So many people have this idea: I want to achieve something great or be somebody great. And they neglect the step that leads to greatness. They don’t honor this step at this moment because they have this idea of some future moment where they are going to be great.

Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.

All my life, I’ve been trying to make a hole-in-one. The closest I’ve come is a bogey.

The closest I ever came to getting married was just before I started singing. In fact, my first record saved my neck.

Mickey Mouse popped out of my mind onto a drawing pad 20 years ago on a train ride from Manhattan to Hollywood at a time when business fortunes of my brother Roy and myself were at lowest ebb and disaster seemed right around the corner.

You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lines. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I’ll rise.

It needs time. Nobody wants to hear it, but that’s the truth: if you want to have success in the future, you have to be ready to work now.

Oh, give us the man who sings at his work.

Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.

I am in the fighting game. I don’t care about anything else. I don’t watch the news, I don’t care about politics, I don’t care about other sports. I don’t care about anything I don’t need to care about. This is my sport: it is my life. I study it; I think about it all the time. Nothing else matters.

Life is an exciting business, and most exciting when it is lived for others.

If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.

The best morale exist when you never hear the word mentioned. When you hear a lot of talk about it, it’s usually lousy.

Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervor.

No one that encounters prosperity does not also encounter danger.

It confuses me and disappoints me when somebody says, ‚What does he do? What does he do?‘ My records are some of the biggest anthems ever. What do you think, they magically just appear? Obama walked out to my record.

I was a little worried that young people would think the only game was being political and manipulative when really the bigger game is being so good at what you do that nobody can argue with your results.

Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.

I’d be so bored if I wasn’t going out there, knowing that I could still do it. So, I’m going to work hard to be ready to go, and I still plan on playing for a long time.

Like a pianist runs her fingers over the keys, I’ll search my mind for what to say. Now, the poem may want you to write it. And then sometimes you see a situation and think, ‚I’d like to write about that.‘ Those are two different ways of being approached by a poem, or approaching a poem.

I get up every morning and say, ‚Father, give me strength today, not strength so I can lift 500 pounds, but give me strength, Lord, so when I speak, my words might motivate, might inspire somebody, Lord, when they see me, let them see you. When they hear me, Lord, let them hear you. In your holy name I pray.‘

A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.