One of the wonderful things about Oprah: She teaches you to keep on stepping.

I believe that God has put gifts and talents and ability on the inside of every one of us. When you develop that and you believe in yourself and you believe that you’re a person of influence and a person of purpose, I believe you can rise up out of any situation.

Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.

We based the look on rock ‚n roll right from the beginning.

Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive. They counted wrong.

I’ve done many ads because that’s my new career. It’s an inspiring extension for my mind.

When everything works best, it’s not because you chose writing but because writing chose you. It’s when you’re mad with it, it’s when it’s stuffed in your ears, your nostrils, under your fingernails. It’s when there’s no hope but that.

I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope, Self.

As a kid, we would drive up and down 77 North – that’s our highway – there would be office buildings on the side of the highway and I’d be like, that’s what my house is going to look like when I get older. I’m going to start making my house look like this.

How one life turns out is not dependent on what people do to us or what they don’t do for us.

In order to fly, all one must do is simply miss the ground.

If you’re doing your best, you won’t have any time to worry about failure.

For every disciplined effort there is a multiple reward.

I even found it difficult to watch myself playing on TV because I couldn’t identify with the person on the screen. I couldn’t get to grips with it. It was as if it was all happening to someone else.

What’s coming will come and we’ll just have to meet it when it does.

In a magazine, one can get – from cover to cover – 15 to 20 different ideas about life and how to live it.

Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better.

The formation of one’s character ought to be everyone’s chief aim.

To reach a port, we must sail – sail, not tie at anchor – sail, not drift.

Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

To love one that is great, is almost to be great one’s self.

I want to be an honest man and a good writer.

Boot camp sucks – SEAL training sucks – but you know what? That’s what makes you good.

All I ever wanted to do with my life was own a little house. I did that way back with ‚Rocky,‘ so now everything I do is just icing on the cake.

Humility is the solid foundation of all virtues.

I’ve always been surrounded by many great people and professors, but my family, especially my mom who was a teacher, was the person who encouraged me to study and pushed me to continue. When we’re young, we don’t understand why our parents bug us so much with school and doing homework, but it’s a blessing to have that support at home.

Many people, especially young people, would like to be more independent and on their own. But it is very difficult and they suffer from feelings of isolation. I think that is one reason why young readers support my work.

What consumerism really is, at its worst is getting people to buy things that don’t actually improve their lives.

Vulnerability is the birthplace of connection and the path to the feeling of worthiness. If it doesn’t feel vulnerable, the sharing is probably not constructive.

The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.

I will not be triumphed over.

A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.

The big message of gospel is that you don’t have to keep fighting the universe; you can stop, and the universe is quite good to you. There is a loss of ego.

Wherever you go, go with all your heart.

A person will sometimes devote all his life to the development of one part of his body – the wishbone.

My ultimate goal is to end up being happy. Most of the time.

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

No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline.

Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.

Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear.

You have to come to your closed doors before you get to your open doors… What if you knew you had to go through 32 closed doors before you got to your open door? Well, then you’d come to closed door number eight and you’d think, ‚Great, I got another one out of the way’… Keep moving forward.

Humility is to make a right estimate of one’s self.

We do not yet possess ourselves, and we know at the same time that we are much more.

The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.

I love being busy.

Money does not change people, people change.

He only employs his passion who can make no use of his reason.

Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.

Make a habit of two things: to help; or at least to do no harm.

What I can say is that all my characters are searching for their souls, because they are my mirrors. I’m someone who is constantly trying to understand my place in the world, and literature is the best way that I found in order to see myself.

Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called ‚Ego‘.

Do not be in a hurry to succeed. What would you have to live for afterwards? Better make the horizon your goal; it will always be ahead of you.

I know you’ve heard it a thousand times before. But it’s true – hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don’t love something, then don’t do it.

People suffer because they are caught in their views. As soon as we release those views, we are free and we don’t suffer anymore.

Not having hope is not an excuse for not doing something.

Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish.

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

In college, a loss is pretty devastating. That feeling kind of goes away in an 82-game season. You hate to lose, but you also have a lot more games to make up for it.

We don’t want to wait on someone to hire us and give us a check. We want to create our own opportunities.

There is no way to happiness – happiness is the way.

I find it harder and harder every day to live up to my blue china.