My dad seemed comfortable with his decision to be a ‚have-not,‘ but I knew that I wasn’t.

I’ve always written. There’s a journal which I kept from about 9 years old. The man who gave it to me lived across the street from the store and kept it when my grandmother’s papers were destroyed. I’d written some essays. I loved poetry, still do. But I really, really loved it then.

Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.

Conscious of not being able to separate myself from my time, I have decided to become part of it.

I’ve always done whatever I want and always been exactly who I am.

It’s human nature to blame someone else for your shortcomings or upsets.

Some Christians feel guilty when they are doing something that isn’t ‚spiritual.‘ Somehow or another, they feel the need to hurry through the grocery store, dash through the house cleaning, and rush through all the daily aspects of life that seem irrelevant to their faith.

I have never felt that the one thing that I am ‚known for‘ is what I am.

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.

This above all; to thine own self be true.

I shall the effect of this good lesson keeps as watchman to my heart.

My father used to wear the same pants for like a week.

My entire childhood was steeped in poverty. For me, poverty, in a way, was the first inspiration of my life, a commitment to do something for the poor.

Where thou art, that is home.

Start wide, expand further, and never look back.

Fear is not a lasting teacher of duty.

Analysis is like a lobotomy. Who wants to have all their edges shaved off?

For a young person, it is almost a sin, or at least a danger, to be too preoccupied with himself; but for the ageing person, it is a duty and a necessity to devote serious attention to himself.

Live the life you’ve dreamed.

Control your own destiny! Control your own destiny!

Impart as much as you can of your spiritual being to those who are on the road with you, and accept as something precious what comes back to you from them.

I never said I was the best in anything. I never said I’m an icon. The world decides all of that.

The best thing I did was to choose the right heroes.

The last thing I wanted to do was to be a wartime President.

It’s hard for anybody who’s been with me not to feel starved for affection when I’m making love to my ideas. Maybe it’s not meant for me to settle down and be married.

Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.

The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one’s self to destiny.

Genius is a potential that lives within you and every other human being. You have many moments of genius in your lifetime. These are the times when you have a uniquely brilliant idea and implement it even if only you are aware of how fantastic it is.

Forget the past.

The person you consider ignorant and insignificant is the one who came from God, that he might learn bliss from grief and knowledge from gloom.

In retrospect, I can see I couldn’t talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching about. Ha! Like, that sure made sense!

I feel like you get more bees with honey. But that doesn’t mean I don’t get frustrated in my life. My way of dealing with frustration is to shut down and to think and speak logically.

The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it: so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it.

You must do the things you think you cannot do.

Observe all men, thyself most.

I was raised by strong women, and that DNA is in my daughter and wife.

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.

We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.

When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.

Peace is one of the most precious gifts God has promised His children. I know, because for many years my life was not peaceful, and I was miserable.

I don’t need to be vindicated, and I don’t want attention.

We should every night call ourselves to an account: what infirmity have I mastered today? what passions opposed? what temptation resisted? what virtue acquired? Our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.

Wanting to feel good is synonymous with wanting to feel God.

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

When I get logical, and I don’t trust my instincts – that’s when I get in trouble.

I am just happy to be part of the Nike family.

I’m very secure about my talents and about who I am.

My mom was on the United Way group that decides how to allocate the money and looks at all the different charities and makes the very hard decisions about where that pool of funds is going to go.

There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.

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’m a big believer in doing things that make you uncomfortable. So, we live in a world where we want to be as comfortable as we can. And we wonder why we have no growth. We wonder why – when the smallest thing in our life gets difficult – we wonder why we cower and we run away.

It has not yet become obvious to me that there’s no real problem. I cannot define the real problem; therefore, I suspect there’s no real problem, but I’m not sure there’s no real problem.

Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.

I’d like to think you don’t stop being creative once you get happy.

If you were the President of the United States or the Queen of England – you couldn’t have a person who would be more protective than my mother was for me. Which meant really that I could dare to do all sorts of things.

I never promise anything. I don’t promise anything to my mum. I don’t promise anything to the supporters.

My philosophy in life is, Decide what you want to do. You have to have something to hope for.

The only things worth learning are the things you learn after you know it all.

That’s the most terrible thing about being an author – standing there at your mother’s funeral, but you don’t switch the author off. So your own innermost thoughts are grist for the mill. Who was it said – one of the famous lady novelists – ‚unhappy is the family that contains an author‘?

I wouldn’t say that I am one of the greatest dancers, but I am really quite good at what I do.

By indignities men come to dignities.