I have quite a decent constitution in spite of all my abuse of it and my advanced years. I’m still quite robust.

Adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us.

Living indoors without fresh air quickly poisons the blood and makes people feel tired and seedy when they don’t know why. For myself, I sleep out of doors in winter as well as summer. I only feel tired or seedy when I have been indoors a lot. I only catch cold when I sleep in a room.

I’ve had some dark nights of the soul, of course, but giving in to depression would be a sellout, a defeat.

Mickey Mouse popped out of my mind onto a drawing pad 20 years ago on a train ride from Manhattan to Hollywood at a time when business fortunes of my brother Roy and myself were at lowest ebb and disaster seemed right around the corner.

When you are young, you cannot imagine being disabled. You imagine you would conquer it somehow. As I’ve got older, I can imagine it; I can see how life narrows in. I feel compassion for my mother now.

Whenever you give up something, you must replace it with something.

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.

I became a beach bum.

No one has the right to be sorry for himself for a misfortune that strikes everyone.

If you have the ability to pick yourself up by the bootstraps and start over, you come out stronger because you learn from whatever mistakes you made.

This is a ruthless world and one must be ruthless to cope with it.

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

If we chew every morsel of our food, in that way we become grateful, and when you are grateful, you are happy.

‚Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall.

I don’t like celebrities; I don’t hang out with them; I don’t relate to that life.

That we are not much sicker and much madder than we are is due exclusively to that most blessed and blessing of all natural graces, sleep.

We all gonna die eventually from something or other, but don’t be a wimp. Put up a good fight.

Even when we have physical hardships, we can be very happy.

I think it’s very important to cry in the shower and not in front of them. They need to know that everything’s going to be all right, even when you’re not sure it is.

I grew up where, when a door closed, a window didn’t open. The only thing I had was cracks. I’d do everything to get through those cracks – scratch, claw, bite, push, bleed. Now the opportunity is here. The door is wide open, and it’s as big as a garage.

I’m at peace with what I’m doing, I feel good with what I wake up doing and about my lifestyle.

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

As you get older, the questions come down to about two or three. How long? And what do I do with the time I’ve got left?

‚Unforgiven‘ is probably an example of a script that I liked right away but thought, ‚This is great, but I’d like to do this when I’m older.‘ So I stuck it in the drawer for ten years and then took it out.

I guess I don’t so much mind being old, as I mind being fat and old.

I’ve 20,000 hours of clinical practice; you’re not naive after the first few thousand. I’ve helped people deal with things that most people can’t imagine.

Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.

For most of us, wisdom is acquired in the thicket of experience and usually meets us somewhere along the way if we live long enough. But sooner is better than later.

Man lives for science as well as bread.

When any calamity has been suffered the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped.

Every single one of us has a few months here or there that feel like dark months.

We should all start to live before we get too old.

I was always very curious as a young man about why older writers who I met seemed so indifferent to what was going on, whereas I, in my 20s, was reading everything. Everything seemed important. But they were only interested in the writers they admired when they were young, and I didn’t understand it then, but now, now I understand it.

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.

As you get older, you’re not afraid of doubt. Doubt isn’t running the show. You take out all the self-agonizing.

You have freedom when you’re easy in your harness.

Until 1914 I loved to travel; I often went to Italy and once spent a few months in India. Since then I have almost entirely abandoned travelling, and I have not been outside of Switzerland for over ten years.

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!

Failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable.

There are going to be good days and bad days. Bottom line.

The only way round is through.

Our growing softness, our increasing lack of physical fitness, is a menace to our security.

When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them.

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?

Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming opposition – such as lifting weights – we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity.

Don’t let the incidents which take place in life bring you low. And certainly don’t whine. You can be brought low, that’s OK, but don’t be reduced by them. Just say, ‚That’s life.‘

At my advanced age – I’m now an octogenarian – I’m constantly amazed by the number of people who want to take my picture.

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

A merry heart doeth good like medicine.

The egoism which enters into our theories does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is satisfied, the more robust is our belief.

Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.

Maturity is the ability to reap without apology and not complain when things don’t go well.

Everyone goes through adversity in life, but what matters is how you learn from it.

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

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.

When we tackle obstacles, we find hidden reserves of courage and resilience we did not know we had. And it is only when we are faced with failure do we realise that these resources were always there within us. We only need to find them and move on with our lives.

Americans never quit.

To our brothers in Latin America and the world, we must convey that the Cuban people will overcome.

If you start to think of your physical and moral condition, you usually find that you are sick.