In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.

I just do the best I can and write something interesting, to tell stories in an interesting way and move forward from there.

When things are really dismal, you can laugh, or you can cave in completely.

In the world today many people rightfully feel entitled to have success and the good things in life, but they usually understand it will require sacrifice and hard work.

Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.

It’s lack that gives us inspiration. It’s not fullness.

We were poor, but we smiled.

Love is the answer to everything. It’s the only reason to do anything. If you don’t write stories you love, you’ll never make it. If you don’t write stories that other people love, you’ll never make it.

I don’t think the ebbs and flows – get in great shape and then get out of shape and then see if you can get back into shape – is a good thing. So I prefer to keep my arm always ready to go.

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.

I don’t know how to live good. I only know how to suffer.

This ain’t fun. But you watch me, I’ll get it done.

The ladder of success is never crowded at the top.

We’re going to have to work. We’re going to have to play well. Nothing will be given to us.

If a small-town boy like me who bagged groceries was able to make his dreams come true, you can too.

I went through every emotion with tryna pursue what I’m doing, you know what I mean? And I think what’s gon‘ separate whoever’s gon go for something, that you ain’t gon‘ quit.

Let each become all that he was created capable of being.

Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

You don’t get paid for the hour. You get paid for the value you bring to the hour.

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.

I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe.

Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, ‚This is a misfortune‘ but ‚To bear this worthily is good fortune.‘

It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.

I’m afraid of losing my obscurity. Genuineness only thrives in the dark. Like celery.

If you’re going to be a winner in life, you have to constantly go beyond your best.

I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.

If we’re really honest with ourselves, most of us will admit that we want to impress people, and this is what’s causing us to do what we do.

Always have something beautiful in sight, even if it’s just a daisy in a jelly glass.

I don’t see how people are comfortable with seeing other people be great. You can be happy for anybody, but what is your excuse to not want to be great? These people are great because they just say, ‚I’ma do that,‘ and they do it. That’s it. There’s no scientifical process.

Man’s only true happiness is to live in hope of something to be won by him. Reverence something to be worshipped by him, and love something to be cherished by him, forever.

What is a fear of living? It’s being preeminently afraid of dying. It is not doing what you came here to do, out of timidity and spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility for yourself – for the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don’t know what you’re here to do, then just do some good.

Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New.

When you are organizing a group of people, the first thing that we do is we talk about the history of what other people have been able to accomplish – people that look like them, workers like them, ordinary people, working people – and we give them the list: these are people like yourself; this is what they were able to do in their community.

What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.

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.

A word of encouragement from a teacher to a child can change a life. A word of encouragement from a spouse can save a marriage. A word of encouragement from a leader can inspire a person to reach her potential.

Your energy, your spirit are important considerations. Feeling petty and frustrated can have reverberating consequences for your ability to think strategically and reach your goals.

Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.

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.

Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.

I don’t believe in pessimism. If something doesn’t come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it’s going to rain, it will.

That I be not as those are who spend the day in complaining of headache and the night in drinking the wine which gives the headache!

The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail.

I don’t think about the end game. I’ve got lots to occupy my mind. It’s the rage that keeps me going.

You must take action now that will move you towards your goals. Develop a sense of urgency in your life.

We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.

To excel at the highest level – or any level, really – you need to believe in yourself, and hands down, one of the biggest contributors to my self-confidence has been private coaching.

When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at top speed.

Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.

Providence has its appointed hour for everything. We cannot command results, we can only strive.

Thought is the parent of the deed.

The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective.

A lot of football success is in the mind. You must believe you are the best and then make sure that you are.

One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.

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

What were once only hopes for the future have now come to pass; it is almost exactly 13 years since the overwhelming majority of people in Ireland and Northern Ireland voted in favour of the agreement signed on Good Friday 1998, paving the way for Northern Ireland to become the exciting and inspirational place that it is today.

Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment, full effort is full victory.

Electrical science has revealed to us the true nature of light, has provided us with innumerable appliances and instruments of precision, and has thereby vastly added to the exactness of our knowledge.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.

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