For it is often to be observed of the shallower men, that they are the very last to despond. It is the glory of the bladder that nothing can sink it; it is the reproach of a box of treasure, that once overboard it must drown

He who has never failed somewhere, that man cannot be great.

Any time you're in front of a camera and have them yell 'Cut, re-shoot the scene,' are you kidding me? That's a huge advantage.

Of course, there are those critics - New York critics as a rule - who say, 'Well, Maya Angelou has a new book out and of course it's good but then she's a natural writer.' Those are the ones I want to grab by the throat and wrestle to the floor because it takes me forever to get it to sing. I work at the language.

I've had all six of my books reach the New York Times bestseller list, which is especially rewarding seeing as I flunked out of high school twice because I couldn't write. It just goes to show you that we learn from our mistakes.

New York is such a competitive place; it tears people apart. People come here and, if they can't make it in the first month, they get torn apart and they have to go back to where they came from. I don't think that's terribly healthy.

If you're not making mistakes, then you're not doing anything. I'm positive that a doer makes mistakes.

When you start very young and you start to work, you're going to fail. That's how you learn.

There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will succeed, too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury.

No, I've always been impressed with the tremendous resilience of the American economy. I think over the years, over the decades, it's demonstrated this tremendous ability to take severe body blows, if you will, and bounce back.

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who want to get things done, and those who don't want to make mistakes.

There are so many people who would like to see me not make it in Nashville. But that's good motivation.