My mother, I suppose, is still a main figure in my life because her life was so sad and unfair, and she so brave, but also because she was determined to make me into the Sunday-school-recitation little girl I was, from the age of seven or so, fighting not to be.

I was brought up differently than the average American child because the average child is brought up expecting to be happy.

I don’t want no handouts. I want to get it out the mud.

We did it Disneyland, in the knowledge that most of the people I talked to thought it would be a financial disaster – closed and forgotten within the first year.

The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can’t be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.

We think it’s fun for our kids to have cameos and join us on set, but not to be actors. That’s not our goal for Brad and me at all. I think we would both prefer that they didn’t become actors.

I had no bad moment in my relationship with Dortmund. Not one second.

When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them.

You’ve got to have faith in what you’re doing and not take no for an answer.

I’ve dreamed about doing music since I was three or four years old.

No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.

That’s what a man wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure one fool tells him he’s wise.

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

People in tough times – it doesn’t mean they don’t have a great attitude.

No matter how beautiful a woman might be, you’re always threatened by certain… You’re always threatened by other women, period.

We make the Sabbath a delight when we teach the gospel to our children.

He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.

In fact, my courage and my bravery at a young age was the thing I was bullied for, a kind of ‚Who do you think you are?‘

If I’d married someone in show business, there’d be too much competition.

The love of the family, the love of one person can heal. It heals the scars left by a larger society. A massive, powerful society.

All mankind love a lover.

I had the most magical childhood, running free and going anywhere I wanted to in my head.

We cannot be sure of having something to live for unless we are willing to die for it.

My father moved to Hawaii from Brooklyn and my mother came there as a child from the Philippines. They met at a show where my dad was playing percussion. My mom was a hula dancer.

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

I purposely don’t talk about money, because people are already skeptical about TV preachers. But I do say that I want you to be blessed. To me, prosperity is having health, having great children, having peace, good relationships. It’s not about the money.

I have been influenced in my thinking by both west and east.

Expect me to continue what I’ve been doing, which is trying to take over the world.

People always say that you can’t please everybody. I think that’s a cop-out. Why not attempt it? ‚Cause think of all the people you will please if you try.

Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly, even if they roll a few stones upon it.

The details surrounding both my marriage and subsequent filing for divorce are private, and I had hoped to keep them that way for the sake of my family.

Michelle and I don’t want anyone telling us who our family’s doctor should be – and no one should decide that for you either. Under our proposals, if you like your doctor, you keep your doctor. If you like your current insurance, you keep that insurance. Period, end of story.

I’ve never had a dislike for men. I’ve been badly treated by some. But I’ve been loved greatly by some. I married a lot of them.

Flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success.

We cannot attribute to fortune or virtue that which is achieved without either.

What I’d really like to control is not machines, but people.

International affairs is very much run like the mafia. The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn’t pay his protection money. You have to have obedience; otherwise, the idea can spread that you don’t have to listen to the orders, and it can spread to important places.

If you would be loved, love, and be loveable.

To me, if you’re trying to impress a girl, get a date, they’re gonna like that more because you’re a confident guy. That’s what it comes down to.

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.

Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.

With all the… success that I’ve been lucky enough to get? That doesn’t happen unless the home life is solid.

It took me 40 years to write my first book. When I was a child, I was encouraged to go to school. I was not encouraged to follow the career of a writer because my parents thought that I was going to starve to death.

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 take a very practical view of raising children. I put a sign in each of their rooms: ‚Checkout Time is 18 years.‘

Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.

A bad man is the sort who weeps every time he speaks of a good woman.

Nothing will work unless you do.

My dad always said, ‚Champ, the measure of a man is not how often he is knocked down, but how quickly he gets up.‘

Though men determine, the gods doo dispose: and oft times many things fall out betweene the cup and the lip.

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.

Absolutely not. I have no problem with commitment. In fact, I love having someone in my life.

Sometimes in the past when I played something might make me lose focus, or I would go home after a game where I thought I could have played better and I would let it hang over my head for a long time when it shouldn’t.

In all our contacts it is probably the sense of being really needed and wanted which gives us the greatest satisfaction and creates the most lasting bond.

I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.

Oh, my mama was awesome. Very strict, overreligious, loved the Lord, loved rules. But she had to be that way because of where we were growing up, the neighborhood I was from.

But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.

Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.

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.

Winning takes precedence over all. There’s no gray area. No almosts.