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

Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it.

Once someone has spent enough time cultivating bad habits and biding their time, they are much diminished. Much of what they could have been has dissipated.

I must govern the clock, not be governed by it.

I’m confident in who I am. I’ve come to a place in my life where I’ve accepted things that are me, as opposed to feeling pressure to explain myself to people around me. That’s just the way I’ve always tried to be. It didn’t change when I became a star.

I just have a thing in my brain that when I’m about to do something that’s genuine or authentic, I think of it in song form. I’ll be like, ‚Yo, this is a human emotion that no one talks about.‘

He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book.

Life doesn’t require that we be the best, only that we try our best.

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

The power of intuitive understanding will protect you from harm until the end of your days.

People need motivation to do anything. I don’t think human beings learn anything without desperation.

A warrior is not a person that carries a gun. The biggest war you ever go through is right between your own ears. It’s in your mind. We’re all going through a war in our mind, and we have to callus our mind to fight that war and to win that war.

I suppose for a very long time I’ve been trying to understand how it is that people might make sense out of their lives and make meaning and make their lives meaningful in the face of the trouble that life brings.

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

I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.

Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.

It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.

If a man constantly aspires is he not elevated?

We learn martial arts as helping weakness. You never fight for people to get hurt. You’re always helping people.

I can never be safe; I always try and go against the grain. As soon as I accomplish one thing, I just set a higher goal. That’s how I’ve gotten to where I am.

There is a fine balance between honoring the past and losing yourself in it. For example, you can acknowledge and learn from mistakes you made, and then move on and refocus on the now. It is called forgiving yourself.

I always had faith in my creative capacity.

No man ever achieved worth-while success who did not, at one time or other, find himself with at least one foot hanging well over the brink of failure.

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

Let a man who has to make his fortune in life remember this maxim: Attacking is the only secret. Dare and the world yields, or if it beats you sometimes, dare it again and you will succeed.

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.

Remember you are just an extra in everyone else’s play.

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.

I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.

The doer alone learneth.

You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves.

My lectures, based on Islamic teachings, were on various subjects. Some of the titles were, ‚The Intoxication of Life,‘ ‚The Purpose of Life,‘ ‚The Real Cause of Man’s Distress,‘ ‚The Journey to the Goal in Life,‘ and, one of my favorites, ‚The Heart of Man.‘ They contained important insights that spoke to something deep inside me.

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone.

If I went back to my 20-year-old self, what I would tell my 20-year-old self is, ‚You don’t know anything.‘ Because everyone, when they’re young, they think they know what’s going on in the world, and you don’t.

I just wanted to write something about running, but I realized that to write about my running is to write about my writing. It’s a parallel thing in me.

Prejudice is a chain, it can hold you. If you prejudice, you can’t move, you keep prejudice for years. Never get nowhere with that.

I think the worst part about a breakup sometimes, if one could choose a worst part, would possibly be if you get out of a relationship, and you don’t recognize yourself because you changed a lot about you.

The bravest person I’ve ever met was a young boy going through massive amounts of treatment for a very rare, complex and unpleasant disease. I last saw him at a Discworld convention, where he chose to take part in a game as an assassin. He died not long afterwards, and I wish I had his fortitude and sense of style.

I worked out early on to give up things I couldn’t do well at all.

Frankly, I think that the news industry is critically important because it points out things and surfaces truths that can often be uncomfortable. I think that that’s working, and the spotlight has been pointed on things that we have a responsibility to do better, and I accept that.

To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.

When one has not had a good father, one must create one.

Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.

I feel like people can relate to me because we all go through wins and roadblocks and passion and pain, and it’s a vibe.

Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.

The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible.

It’s normal for human beings to identify with their own separate self. The problem is that we get caught in that notion of ourself as a separate individual and caught in that individual self’s agenda.

You can bear your own faults, and why not a fault in your wife?

It was weird to be married; you kind of lose your identity. You’re suddenly somebody’s wife. And you’re like, ‚Oh, I’m half of a couple now. I’ve lost me.‘

As far as a glass ceiling, I feel that all you can do is give it your absolute best with whatever gifts the universe has given you. And if you make it in some way that other people can recognize, that’s fine. But even if you don’t quote-unquote make it, you’re fine if you’ve given it your whole heart and soul.

It creeps me out sometimes to think of the person I was. I was a terrible person. I was mean to people.

I’m crazy, but I’m not too crazy.

Every writer has his writing technique – what he can and can’t do to describe something like war or history. I’m not good at writing about those things, but I try because I feel it is necessary to write that kind of thing.

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

My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.

I just really believe people have to get hungry. I think maybe what we need to do, instead of trying to stuff our beliefs down people’s throats, is just pray for them to really be hungry and to see their neediness.

Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.

Libraries raised me.

I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.