What confronts us, now the excitement's over, is our own failure.

Be thankful for every day. Learn from mistakes. Don't dwell on regrets. Forgive with love. Gain strength from every struggle.

If I had a dollar for every time someone made fun of me in high school-oh wait, I do!

It is always possible to do a thing better the second time.

I can easily quote the saying: Misfortunes never come singly.

Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper. What I've learned to do when I sit down to work on a shitty first draft is to quiet the voices in my head.

By the great Persian mystical poet Rumi: "Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.

The secret of being wrong isn't to avoid being wrong! The secret is being willing to be wrong. The secret is realizing that wrong isn't fatal. The only thing that makes people and organizations great is their willingness to be not great along the way. The desire to fail on the way to reaching a bigger goal is the untold secret of success.

Anyone who says failure is not an option has also ruled out innovation.

To be a superstar, you must do something exceptional. Not just survive the Dip, but use the Dip as an opportunity to create something so extraordinary that people can't help but talk about it, recommend it, and, yes, choose it.

The next time you catch yourself being average when you feel like quitting, realize that you have only two good choices: Quit or be exceptional. Average is for losers.

Quitting is difficult. Quitting requires you to acknowledge that you're never going to be #1 in the world. At least not at this. So it's easier just to put it off, not admit it, settle for mediocre.