Trials, obstacles, difficulties and sometimes defeats, are the very food of faith.

Do not desire crosses, unless you have borne those already laid upon you well — it is an abuse to long after martyrdom while unable to bear an insult patiently.

I refuse to let what happened to me make me bitter.

For everything you have missed you have gained something else.

Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.

How in the world could I have lived such a helpful life as I have lived had I not been blind?

Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bi...ed from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt, use it-don't cheat with it.

Try to enjoy myself when I can - I'll be miserable enough as it is.

I've never really had a studio. A studio makes you lazy and comfortable, and you repeat yourself.

If you experiment, you have to fail. By definition, experimenting means going to territory where you've never been, where failure is very possible. How can you know you're going to succeed? Having the courage to face the unknown is so important.

The cure for the fear of failure isn't success. The cure for the fear of failure is failure in small enough doses that we build up an immunity to it.

Every once in a while, I need a no-agenda day with nothing to do, but those aren't the days we're going to celebrate at the end of our lives. We won't even remember those days. What we'll remember are the days when we had everything to do, and with God's help, we did it. We won't remember the things that came easy; we'll remember the things that came hard. We'll remember the miracles on the far side of "long and boring.