I’m sure like everyone else I’m not always the happiest if I don’t do a good job in quali or the race or whatever, so I think beating myself up sometimes makes me work harder.

As your career grows, the list of things that makes you happy should not become smaller, it should become bigger.

It is a most delightful reflection that if I come to the throne of God in prayer, I may feel a thousand defects, but yet there is hope. I usually feel more dissatisfied with my prayers than with anything else I do.

Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many – not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.

One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.

Hope is not a resting place but a starting point – a cactus, not a cushion.

If you try to protect yourself from pain, it becomes a stone in your heart. But the more you learn to face things, the more likely that stone can become a pearl.

Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better.

Whatever you are, be a good one.

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

Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.

I’m not the sort of person who gives up on things. The first time we crossed the Atlantic in the balloon, it crashed, and we went on and did the Pacific. First time we crossed the Atlantic in a boat, it sank, and we went on and got the record. So, generally speaking, we will pick ourselves up, brush ourselves down, and carry on.

It is any day better to stand erect with a broken and bandaged head then to crawl on one’s belly, in order to be able to save one’s head.

I had a period in my life where I decided that I would never be bored again and that, if I had any free time at all, I would make plans, and I would always be doing things. It actually was great for a year or so, but then I lost all of my friends.

Choose people who lift you up.

I had rather be first in a village than second at Rome.

That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.

I deeply regret any harm, or any perceived harm, that I may have done to anyone by any behaviour of mine.

I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.

The reason I became 297 pounds is because that was comfortable. What was very uncomfortable was running. What was very uncomfortable was being on a diet. What was very uncomfortable was trying to face things that I didn’t want to face. And I also realized, when I was really big, I had no growth. Why? Because I was living comfortable.

Man is not made for defeat.

Man is only great when he acts from passion.

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.

I think it’s healthy for a person to be nervous. It means you care – that you work hard and want to give a great performance. You just have to channel that nervous energy into the show.

Getting stress out of your life takes more than prayer alone. You must take action to make changes and stop doing whatever is causing the stress. You can learn to calm down in the way you handle things.

The Mind that lies fallow but a single Day, sprouts up in Follies that are only to be killed by a constant and assiduous Culture.

I’ve done the bad-boy thing. It was fun for a good three months. But the thing about bad boys is, you have to keep in mind, you’re never gonna marry a bad boy.

It makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because there’s nothing you can do about them, and why worry about things you do control? The activity of worrying keeps you immobilized.

There is no way to happiness – happiness is the way.

If you get up in the morning and think the future is going to be better, it is a bright day. Otherwise, it’s not.

Of course, there are those critics – New York critics as a rule – who say, ‚Well, Maya Angelou has a new book out and of course it’s good but then she’s a natural writer.‘ Those are the ones I want to grab by the throat and wrestle to the floor because it takes me forever to get it to sing. I work at the language.

The more people I reach, the more people there are that have opinions about me. Not everyone loves me, but I have to be okay no matter what they think about me.

Success is counted sweetest by those who never succeed.

The more you seek the uncomfortable, the more you will become comfortable.

I once told Nixon that the Presidency is like being a jackass caught in a hail storm. You’ve got to just stand there and take it.

Let us train our minds to desire what the situation demands.

Plenty of people wish to become devout, but no one wishes to be humble.

Any experience that touches you, in any particular way, is good. It can be a horrible experience.

The space shuttle was often used as an example of why you shouldn’t even attempt to make something reusable. But one failed experiment does not invalidate the greater goal. If that was the case, we’d never have had the light bulb.

Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it… that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear.

If you’re bored with life – you don’t get up every morning with a burning desire to do things – you don’t have enough goals.

In the beginning, I was very insecure. I hated how I looked in pictures.

I believe you never get tired by doing work. You get tired when you don’t work. When you clean your house, you don’t get tired; it gives you satisfaction.

Wow, I get to wake up again? Ok. You have to make good with what you’ve got.

Pride is an independent, me-oriented spirit. It makes people arrogant, rude and hard to get along with. When our heart is prideful, we don’t give God the credit and we mistreat people, looking down on them and thinking we deserve what we have.

Whatever I engage in, I must push inordinately.

I haven’t changed at all. I’m the same as when I was 11.

As unique as we all are, an awful lot of us want the same things. We want to shake up our current less-than-fulfilling lives. We want to be happier, more loving, forgiving and connected with the people around us.

Every one of my regrets has produced a song I’m proud of.

With any recovery from morbidity there must go a certain healthy humiliation.

What I’m asking for is hard. It’s easier to be cynical; to accept that change isn’t possible, and politics is hopeless, and to believe that our voices and actions don’t matter. But if we give up now, then we forsake a better future.

America makes prodigious mistakes, America has colossal faults, but one thing cannot be denied: America is always on the move. She may be going to Hell, of course, but at least she isn’t standing still.

And, honestly, if somebody wants to criticize me for not being a trainwreck, that’s fine with me!

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.

I’m aware that, whatever the circumstances, there will always be speculation about me.

I was raised to be an independent woman, not the victim of anything.

Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.

When I was in college I did a lot of stupid things and I don’t want to make an excuse for that. Some of the things that people accuse me of are true, some of them aren’t. There are pranks, IMs.

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

What good is it being Marilyn Monroe? Why can’t I just be an ordinary woman?