I’ve got a woman’s ability to stick to a job and get on with it when everyone else walks off and leaves it.

I focus on one thing and one thing only – that’s trying to win as many championships as I can.

I’m gonna go hard no matter what because I gotta feed my family, and I gotta feed myself.

Successful people will always tell you you can do something. It’s the people who have never accomplished anything who will always discourage you from trying to achieve excellent things.

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

If there’s one thing that’s certain in business, it’s uncertainty.

Because, you know, resilience – if you think of it in terms of the Gold Rush, then you’d be pretty depressed right now because the last nugget of gold would be gone. But the good thing is, with innovation, there isn’t a last nugget. Every new thing creates two new questions and two new opportunities.

Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning.

Life is hard. After all, it kills you.

Unwearied ceaseless effort is the price that must be paid for turning faith into a rich infallible experience.

Even when folks are hitting you over the head, you can’t stop marching. Even when they’re turning the hoses on you, you can’t stop.

All I have to say is basically if performing, singing, acting, and dancing is what you want to do, then you just have to do it – no matter where it is.

The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.

I think it all comes down to motivation. If you really want to do something, you will work hard for it.

We can feel joy even while having a bad day, a bad week, or even a bad year!

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.

When I was into my 30s, I became increasingly depressed by rejection letters. I had had the feeling that by the time I was 30, I would be established. But I was not at all. By the time of ‚Lives of Girls and Women,‘ I was into my 40s and I had become more thin-skinned.

I know what it feels like to struggle to get the education that you need.

I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‚Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.‘

If you will do what God tells you to do, there’s no person on Earth and no devil in Hell that can keep you from having what God wants you to have.

I never read one hateful thing said about me by some 12 year old. So I got to live an actual life. And I’ve kept that mentality. Just because there’s a hurricane going on around you doesn’t mean you have to open the window and look at it.

Do what nobody else can do for you. Omit to do anything else.

There’s people that tried to celebrate when I lost that got nothing to do with it. That’s not the sign of a champion.

If you want to shine like a sun, first burn like a sun.

Must is a hard nut to crack, but it has a sweet kernel.

My faith was tested like Job. That’s the message I try to tell other people: just because you believe in God, serve God, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, people gotta realize, it don’t mean things not gonna happen to you.

You pray for rain, you gotta deal with the mud too. That’s a part of it.

Baseball is like a poker game. Nobody wants to quit when he’s losing; nobody wants you to quit when you’re ahead.

I got the stern end of the stick. It was kind of that iron fist. I am who I am today because of my mother.

Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They’re just braver five minutes longer.

I’m the most stubborn person I know.

I was asked to act when I couldn’t act. I was asked to sing ‚Funny Face‘ when I couldn’t sing, and dance with Fred Astaire when I couldn’t dance – and do all kinds of things I wasn’t prepared for. Then I tried like mad to cope with it.

The reason that I’m here at all is because of my relationship with my family and their encouragement of me to be a musician and to work hard. As long as I stay there in that space, I can do anything. That’s my truth.

You have to be able to accept failure to get better.

I won at every level – all the way since I started playing the game of basketball at nine. I’ve won at every level, won championships at every level. And, you know, it won’t be fulfilled until I win at the highest level.

The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.

When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.

I plan on taking athletics as far as I can.

I believe that I’m one of the best in the world at what I do, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted to be.

I was raised in a family where vulnerability was barely tolerated: no training wheels on our bicycles, no goggles in the pool, just get it done. And so I grew up not only with discomfort about my own vulnerability, I didn’t care for it in other people either.

The one thing about the business of entertainment is that you have to learn patience.

Great is the power of habit. It teaches us to bear fatigue and to despise wounds and pain.

I hate pain, despite my ability to tolerate it beyond all known parameters, which is not necessarily a good thing.

If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.

Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.

Don’t despair, not even over the fact that you don’t despair.

Even after a bad harvest there must be sowing.

Success is not a stop sign.

The humanists‘ replacement for religion: work really hard and somehow you’ll either save yourself or you’ll be immortal. Of course, that’s a total joke, and our progress is nothing. There may be progress in technology but there’s no ethical progress whatsoever.

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

Some people take defeat and losses a certain way. You see how some fighters take losses.

Great grief does not of itself put an end to itself.

But for me to have the opportunity to stand in front of a bunch of executives and present myself, I had to hustle in my own way. I can’t tell you how frustrating it was that they didn’t get that. No joke – I’d leave meetings crying all the time.

Sure it’s a big job; but I don’t know anyone who can do it better than I can.

Genius always gives its best at first; prudence, at last.

We are not retreating – we are advancing in another direction.

When you’re around me and really see that all I do is live and breathe for my work, it’s not strange, it’s just Gaga.

To endure is the first thing that a child ought to learn, and that which he will have the most need to know.

Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit.

Fun is one of the most important – and underrated – ingredients in any successful venture. If you’re not having fun, then it’s probably time to call it quits and try something else.

When you are a beginning film maker you are desperate to survive. The most important thing in the end is survival and being able to get to your next picture.