When you know what you want, and want it bad enough, you will find a way to get it.

Luxury is the wolf at the door and its fangs are the vanities and conceits germinated by success. When an artist learns this, he knows where the danger is.

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.

Most people already know what they’re doing wrong. When I get them to church I want to tell them that you can change.

Success is not greedy, as people think, but insignificant. That is why it satisfies nobody.

I don’t focus on the critics. Everyone who is making any difference in any field has critics. As long as I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, then I don’t worry about it.

If someone is going down the wrong road, he doesn’t need motivation to speed him up. What he needs is education to turn him around.

Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don’t complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don’t bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live!

Don’t wait around for other people to be happy for you. Any happiness you get you’ve got to make yourself.

If you’ve got a plan, it’s not just like a pipe dream. You have a step-by-step list of things to do to get to your goal.

Ability is nothing without opportunity.

I can’t deny that label-support gave me a leg up – though not every successful artist needs it.

It is no good getting furious if you get stuck. What I do is keep thinking about the problem but work on something else. Sometimes it is years before I see the way forward. In the case of information loss and black holes, it was 29 years.

If I should ever be captured, I want no negotiation – and if I should request a negotiation from captivity they should consider that a sign of duress.

There will be days when I walk in an arena and people will cheer and then there might be days when I walk in an arena and people might boo, but it all sounds the same to me because it’s all just noise that lets me know that I’m relevant.

You can’t have it all all at once. Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all, but in given periods in time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.

Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.

Why is it that although it takes us years to get into our messes, we expect God to get us out of them in a few days?

I never really had the classic struggle. I had faith.

I want to go down in the history books with what I’ve achieved.

A lot of people tell me a lot of things about my conduct, my game, my future… but I try to stay away from their words of wisdom. I don’t let it distract me. On the field, you will be facing the ball alone. If you fail, you will the only one to blame. So, you should be the one deciding for yourself.

Get place and wealth, if possible with grace; if not, by any means get wealth and place.

Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.

I wanted to sell a million records, and I sold a million records. I wanted to go platinum; I went platinum. I’ve been working nonstop since I was 15. I don’t even know how to chill out.

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.

It’s really hard to guarantee things in life. I guarantee if you get up in the morning and you work out, and you work hard, you will have a better day – 100% guaranteed.

The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while.

Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before.

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.

Fires can’t be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men. Enthusiasm in our daily work lightens effort and turns even labor into pleasant tasks.

Don’t grow accustomed to living with less, doing less, and being less to the point that you eventually sit back and accept it.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

I was a little worried that young people would think the only game was being political and manipulative when really the bigger game is being so good at what you do that nobody can argue with your results.

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

When I get down, I don’t waller around for long.

Ambition is pitiless. Any merit that it cannot use it finds despicable.

We all know we have a finite period of time. I just feel if I’m going to be alive, I want to be challenged – to be as immortal as possible. The path to that isn’t an easy way, but it’s a rewarding way.

We all sort of do want incentives for creative people to still exist at a certain level. You know, maybe rock stars shouldn’t make as much; who knows? But you want as much creativity to take place in the future as took place in the past.

You do things when the opportunities come along. I’ve had periods in my life when I’ve had a bundle of ideas come along, and I’ve had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I’ll do something. If not, I won’t do a damn thing.

The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.

Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.

Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.

Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.

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

Commit yourself to a mighty purpose.

There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome; to be got over.

I was the kid that was the 199th pick that never had the body for it. People didn’t think I’d play one year in the NFL, and now I’m going on my 17th year.

I’ve felt like an outsider all my life. It comes from my mother, who always felt like an outsider in my father’s family. She was a powerful woman, and she motivated my father.

If you’re going to be a winner in life, you have to constantly go beyond your best.

The thermometer of success is merely the jealousy of the malcontents.

To become ‚unique,‘ the challenge is to fight the hardest battle which anyone can imagine until you reach your destination.

Not to go back is somewhat to advance, and men must walk, at least, before they dance.

If you are lucky enough to find something that you love, and you have a shot at being good at it, don’t stop, don’t put it down.

The human body has two ends on it: one to create with and one to sit on. Sometimes people get their ends reversed. When this happens they need a kick in the seat of the pants.

Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door.

The best augury of a man’s success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world.

Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.

I feel like whatever you’ve done in your career, good or bad, it’s nothing but preparation for the big events to come.

I don’t believe I’ll ever get credit for anything I do in foreign affairs, no matter how successful it is, because I didn’t go to Harvard.

God’s desire is that we excel.