The experience of pain or loss can be a formidably motivating force.

There are many harsh lessons to be learned from the gambling experience, but the harshest one of all is the difference between having Fun and being Smart.

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

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.

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

So many people live with anger and unforgiveness, and many of them are Christians.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right, than to be responsible and wrong.

People can cry much easier than they can change.

No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.

You not supposed to feel down over whatever happen to you. I mean, you’re supposed to use whatever happen to you as some type of upper, not a downer.

It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more sensitive.

Why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.

It was really hard for them to intimidate me. They felt I was intimidating. One of the growers had a name for me: I think it was ‚dragon lady‘ or something like it.

In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play.

Satan wants us to constantly focus on everything that is wrong with us and look at how far we still have to go. But God desires for us to rejoice in how far we have already come.

Most of my young years were spent under the boots of the military.

I never thought I would be such a family-oriented guy; I didn’t think that was part of my makeup. But somebody said that as you get older, you become the person you always should have been, and I feel that’s happening to me.

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do.

The ideal death, I think, is what was the ideal Victorian death, you know, with your grandchildren around you, a bit of sobbing. And you say goodbye to your loved ones, making certain that one of them has been left behind to look after the shop.

The happiest people in the world are those who feel absolutely terrific about themselves, and this is the natural outgrowth of accepting total responsibility for every part of their life.

I gather from motivation around me – from a lot of personalities who have done well in their respective fields.

You can’t put your feet on the ground until you’ve touched the sky.

The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.

There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.

The wise are wise only because they love. The fool are fools only because they think they can understand love.

Never give in – never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.

I’m very at ease, and I like it. I never thought I would be such a family-oriented guy; I didn’t think that was part of my makeup. But somebody said that as you get older you become the person you always should have been, and I feel that’s happening to me. I’m rather surprised at who I am, because I’m actually like my dad!

Don’t talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.

After the first day of practice, there’s not one guy who’s playing at 100 percent or who feels great. Sometimes, getting up in the morning and brushing your teeth is the hardest part of the day – it just hurts.

Senator Kerry has been in Washington long enough to take both sides on just about every issue.

How does a nice Catholic girl end up going to prison for a year? It’s crazy. I’ve made mistakes. I have to pay for those mistakes.

Sitting on a bedroom floor crying is something that makes you feel really alone. If someone’s singing about that feeling, you feel bonded to that person. That’s the only way I can find an explanation for why 55,000 people would want to come see me sing.

I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. No matter what the injury – unless it’s completely debilitating – I’m going to be the same player I’ve always been. I’ll figure it out. I’ll make some tweaks, some changes, but I’m still coming.

Live out of your imagination, not your history.

Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope.

There’s nothing I have to hide or defend. I’m gonna live my life. And there are times when people wanna try to attack me, and I don’t know why, but they will. And that’s okay.

Real firmness is good for anything; strut is good for nothing.

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations.

Many people resented my impatience and honesty, but I never cared about acceptance as much as I cared about respect.

There are things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind.

I think it is the height of ignorance to believe that the sexual act is an independent function necessary like sleeping or eating. Seeing, therefore, that I did not desire more children, I began to strive after self-control. There was endless difficulty in the task.

If you have fear, you are bound by tradition, you follow some leader or guru. When you are bound by tradition, when you are afraid of your husband or your wife, you lose your dignity as an individual human being.

Hatred is an affair of the heart; contempt that of the head.

We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.

Spiritual people don’t float around all day on clouds of glory; they live in the real world and deal with real issues in real ways.

To do the same thing over and over again is not only boredom: it is to be controlled by rather than to control what you do.

I was brought up to believe that the worst thing you could do was ‚call attention to yourself,‘ or ‚think you were smart.‘ My mother was an exception to this rule and was punished by the early onset of Parkinson’s disease.

Under the worst conditions, horrendous conditions, people still, you know, fight for their rights and don’t just succumb.

I wish they would only take me as I am.

Anger cannot be dishonest.

Our vanity is hardest to wound precisely when our pride has just been wounded.

I’m so nervous. I’ve always been nervous, ever since I was a kid.

Poetry comes from the highest happiness or the deepest sorrow.

Thinking is a wonderful tool if it’s applied. Thinking, however, can not become the master. Thinking is a very bad master. If you’re dominated by thinking then your life becomes very restricted.

I got teased my entire school life. What they were picking on I don’t even understand.

The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.

Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.

I have spent many years of my life in opposition, and I rather like the role.

When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is your presence. How can you love if you are not there?