When you are aspiring to the highest place, it is honorable to reach the second or even the third rank.

How you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win.

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

To be successful, a woman has to be much better at her job than a man.

Surface R&B doesn’t work any more. The whole heartthrob thing, songs about unrealistic love and tearing your shirt off every show – that’s not really where it’s at any more. It’s becoming harder for those guys to sell records, and harder for them to succeed.

They used to call me ‚Touchdown T.‘ I remember in high school, we had homecoming, and I got in front of the pep rally, and I told them, ‚I’m going to run for three touchdowns.‘ I ran for three touchdowns, kicked the extra point, and took myself out the game.

Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.

I have spent my life going from mania to mania. Somehow it has all paid off.

I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor, and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.

I have observed that society in general always seems to honor its living conformists and its dead troublemakers.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

Some day I shall be President.

We should not give up and we should not allow the problem to defeat us.

People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things.

There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period.

A number of analysts have observed that although bin Laden was finally killed, he won some major successes in his war against the U.S.

You can kill ten of our men for every one we kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and we will win.

I have no interest in Shakespeare and all that British nonsense… I just wanted to get famous and all the rest is hogwash.

It’s much easier to be successful than it is to be relevant. The tricks won’t keep you relevant. Tricks might keep you popular for a while, but in all honesty, I don’t know how U2 will stay relevant. I know we’ve got a future. I know we can fill stadiums. And yet with every record, I think, ‚Is this it? Are we still relevant?‘

I’m an all-or-nothing kind of guy, I guess.

To all the positions, I just bring the determination to win. Me being an unselfish player, I think that can carry on to my teammates. When you have one of the best players on the court being unselfish, I think that transfers to the other players.

Giving responsibility is the key to success with boys, especially with the rowdiest and most difficult boys.

I have to admit, I sometimes wonder how much more successful I would have been as a coach had it not been for my spending summers on the golf course. I could have watched more film, that’s for sure. One advantage Joe Paterno had over me was that he didn’t play golf.

That’s been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.

If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it.

I’ve noticed that when I am selling a lot of records, certain things become easier. I’m not talking about getting a table in a restaurant.

If thou art a man, admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail.

I still have my first paycheck. It was just, I think, a dollar or two that I got when I started as a songwriter with BMI, and I had some songs there that I had through the company, and in the mail I got this big old check for, like, a dollar and a half or something. Somebody had recorded one of my songs.

My interest in life comes from setting myself huge, apparently unachievable challenges and trying to rise above them.

I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.

The wish to acquire more is admittedly a very natural and common thing; and when men succeed in this they are always praised rather than condemned. But when they lack the ability to do so and yet want to acquire more at all costs, they deserve condemnation for their mistakes.

There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.

Whatever good things we build end up building us.

I think, because I started Virgin when I was a teenager, it has become a part of me, like my family, and I am motivated by ambition for it, almost as if it were a child.

As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information.

Climbing to the top demands strength, whether it is to the top of Mount Everest or to the top of your career.

When I did have some success, it further emboldens you to be like, ‚No, I’m just going to write what I feel I should write.‘

Einstein’s gravitational theory, which is said to be the greatest single achievement of theoretical physics, resulted in beautiful relations connecting gravitational phenomena with the geometry of space; this was an exciting idea.

It’s never crowded along the extra mile.

But in truth, should I meet with gold or spices in great quantity, I shall remain till I collect as much as possible, and for this purpose I am proceeding solely in quest of them.

A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards.

The courage we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently, but to live manfully.

Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible.

It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment.

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.

Sometimes I wonder why I’m a novelist right now. There is no definite career reason why I became a writer. Something happened, and I became a writer. And now I’m a successful writer.

My understanding of racial discrimination as a child was highly distorted because the most prominent man in Archery was an African-American bishop. When he came home from up north, where he was in charge of A.M.E. churches in five states, it was front-page news. He was the most successful man in my life.

The successful men I admired all built their bodies.

Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.

Every night on the court I give my all, and if I’m not giving 100 percent, I criticize myself.

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.

A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success.

I’m sure that at no point in my life could I ever have shown the kind of focus and discipline and commitment necessary to work a station at elBulli or Le Bernardin. No. That ain’t me.

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.

Necessity is the mother of taking chances.

My honour was not yielded, but conquered merely.

I didn’t know how to deal with success. If there was a Rock Star 101, I would have liked to take it. It might have helped me.

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.

I had no ambition to be a writer because the books I read were too good, my standards were too high.

My priority is cricket. Everything that I get apart from it is a result of the effort on the field. Everything else follows. I am pretty aware of my priorities, and I don’t really focus on things that are not as important to me as cricket.