We are motivated by a keen desire for praise, and the better a man is the more he is inspired by glory. The very philosophers themselves, even in those books which they write in contempt of glory, inscribe their names.

Follow your honest convictions and be strong.

They say it is the first step that costs the effort. I do not find it so. I am sure I could write unlimited ‚first chapters‘. I have indeed written many.

Our brand of democracy is hard. But I can promise that a year from now, when I no longer hold this office, I’ll be right there with you as a citizen – inspired by those voices of fairness and vision, of grit and good humor and kindness that have helped America travel so far.

Reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice. And, of course, if there are no young readers and writers, there will shortly be no older ones. Literacy will be dead, and democracy – which many believe goes hand in hand with it – will be dead as well.

When your dream is bigger than you are, you only have two choices: give up or get help.

Let every dawn be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close.

The first real thought that I had of something that I might do was to write for car magazines, because I always had a car thing.

People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.

What by a straight path cannot be reached by crooked ways is never won.

Almost any biographer, if he respects facts, can give us much more than another fact to add to our collection. He can give us the creative fact; the fertile fact; the fact that suggests and engenders.

Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another.

Most people want to avoid pain, and discipline is usually painful.

I never cut class. I loved getting A’s, I liked being smart. I liked being on time. I thought being smart is cooler than anything in the world.

Quality is not an act, it is a habit.

Man needs his difficulties because they are necessary to enjoy success.

I’m sure like everyone else I’m not always the happiest if I don’t do a good job in quali or the race or whatever, so I think beating myself up sometimes makes me work harder.

You must never be satisfied with losing. You must get angry, terribly angry, about losing. But the mark of the good loser is that he takes his anger out on himself and not his victorious opponents or on his teammates.

Books are as useful to a stupid person as a mirror is useful to a blind person.

If I inspire you, pay for it, period.

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

I don’t feel pressure in a negative way. I like pressure. I feel excitement and calm at the same time. No pressure, no diamonds. I want pressure: pressure creates drama, creates emotion.

The best author will be the one who is ashamed to become a writer.

Music comes to me more readily than words.

In any profession it gets to be a grind.

The actual business of writing dialogue is not thought of as a craft.

Everybody that I was in school with had an uncle or father in the law, and I started to realize that I was going to end up writing briefs for about ten years for these fellows who I thought I was smarter than. And I was kind of losing my feeling for that.

I always knew that St. Jude was an amazing organization but meeting the kids and seeing how the hospital works first hand was truly beautiful. It doesn’t feel like a regular hospital all dreary and sad. It’s a colorful, beautiful, comfortable, fun place to live and the energy is wonderful.

The worst thing one can do is not to try, to be aware of what one wants and not give in to it, to spend years in silent hurt wondering if something could have materialized – never knowing.

If you try and work out at 4:30 in the afternoon, how many people are going to chip away at that time? Your boss, your job, your work, your family, your other obligations that you might have. At 4:30 in the morning, all those people are asleep, so you can do whatever you want.

A passionate belief in your business and personal objectives can make all the difference between success and failure. If you aren’t proud of what you’re doing, why should anybody else be?

The short words are best, and the old words are the best of all.

All of my writing is God-given.

Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes.

All that spirits desire, spirits attain.

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.

But when I hear a great song, I can’t help but be inspired by it, regardless of whatever genre that song falls under.

Anything you put your mind to and add your imagination into can make your life a lot better and a lot more fun.

I’m writing an unauthorized autobiography.

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

Stay hungry, stay foolish.

The man who knows it can’t be done counts the risk, not the reward.

It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make their appearance in the world.

Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow.

One is lucky to be born in a place where no one is doing it, because then you can say, ‚Well, obviously I can write better than everyone else in high school.‘ You have no idea of the competition.

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.

There have to be reasons that you get up in the morning and you want to live. Why do you want to live? What’s the point? What inspires you? What do you love about the future? If the future does not include being out there among the stars and being a multi-planet species, I find that incredibly depressing.

Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed… Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.

You gotta understand: I believe a woman should praise the man, the king. If you holding it down for your woman, I feel like the woman should praise. And the man should praise the queen.

The love of heaven makes one heavenly.

The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.

My stories run up and bite me on the leg – I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.

I like sitting and writing with my buddies.

I read a lot when I’m travelling and always have a couple of books on the go.

There is no way to prosperity, prosperity is the way.

I want to thank The Beatles for almost single-handedly getting me out of writer’s block.

I know that some books and some writers, you can pretty much draw a square around it and say, ‚Nobody under 40,‘ or ‚Nobody under 25.‘ With my books, it always has been, and continues to be, spread right across the board, and I think the operative term is ‚reader.‘

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the promised land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land.