Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.

Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

Adventure is not outside man; it is within.

Superstition is the poetry of life.

Better to die ten thousand deaths than wound my honor.

I know you are here to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man.

We were poor. But my mom never accepted that. She worked hard to become a residential contractor – got her master’s with honors at the University of New Orleans. I used to go to every class with her. Her father was my paternal figure.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear.

There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths.

Dying is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down.

If you had your life to live over again, do it overseas.

First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. Then proceed to improve on the worst.

Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.

There are times when you throw an interception and you’re beating yourself up.

A leader who doesn’t hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader.

We can be thankful to a friend for a few acres, or a little money; and yet for the freedom and command of the whole earth, and for the great benefits of our being, our life, health, and reason, we look upon ourselves as under no obligation.

A lot of people ask me when I do a stunt, ‚Jackie, are you scared?‘ Of course I’m scared. I’m not Superman.

Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.

If you stop struggling, then you stop life.

You have to develop ways so that you can take up for yourself, and then you take up for someone else. And so sooner or later, you have enough courage to really stand up for the human race and say, ‚I’m a representative.‘

I’m not resigned, but I’m realistic too. The statistics in my case are very poor. Not many people come through esophageal cancer and live to talk about it, or not for long. And the other wager is, the part of the wager, it’s a certainty you’ll have a terrible time and you may wish you were dying because it’s an awful process.

Anyone can have a good day, but you have to be able to perform on a bad day.

Life is not accumulation, it is about contribution.

Art is the proper task of life.

We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.

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 had my moments of being humiliated, and then I had moments of doing something humiliating. I’m glad I lived out both roles.

The future is called ‚perhaps‘, which is the only possible thing to call the future. And the important thing is not to allow that to scare you.

If people think nature is their friend, then they sure don’t need an enemy.

Life is too short for long-term grudges.

He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.

I came up from a difficult background.

Religion was instituted to make us happy in this life and in the other. What must we do to be happy in the life to come? Be just.

Death, like birth, is a secret of Nature.

A lot of people are afraid to tell the truth, to say no. That’s where toughness comes into play. Toughness is not being a bully. It’s having backbone.

You can’t stop everything from happening. But we’ve gotten to a point where we’re certainly trying. If a car doesn’t have four hundred air bags in it, then it’s no good.

Life doesn’t imitate art, it imitates bad television.

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

I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered patient.

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.

Opera happens because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong.

Life is very difficult. One of the most ancient of religious ideas that emerges everywhere, I would say, is that life is essentially suffering.

It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.

A family shares hardships and a connected history.

Whenever you give up something, you must replace it with something.

We’re not a fragile people. We’re not a frightful people. Our power doesn’t come from some self-declared savior promising that he alone can restore order as long as we do things his way. We don’t look to be ruled.

The earth laughs in flowers.

Most of us have far more courage than we ever dreamed we possessed.

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.

Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout.

Although the life of a person is in a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased.

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

I’m not ashamed to say I fear something.