“I didn’t want them ever to believe that life began when the man of the house arrived home. We didn’t wait for Dad. It was his job now to catch up with us.”

At fifty-four, I am still in progress, and I hope that I always will be.

It was possible, I knew, to live on two planes at once—to have one’s feet planted in reality but pointed in the direction of progress.

Inspiration on its own was shallow; you had to back it up with hard work.

You’ve got to be twice as good to get half as far.

He’s always asking: ‘Is that new? I haven’t seen that before.’ It’s like, Why don’t you mind your own business? Solve world hunger. Get out of my closet.

The noise doesn’t go away, but the most successful people I know have figured out how to live with it, to lean on the people who believe in them, and to push onward with their goals.

I was determined to be someone who told the truth, using my voice to lift up the voiceless when I could, and to not disappear on people in need. I understood that when I showed up somewhere,

I like the idea of being rigorous about friendship.

What do you want to be when you grow up? As if growing up is finite. As if at some point you become something and that’s the end.

One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals. And so when I hear about negative and false attacks, I really don’t invest any energy in them, because I know who I am.

And there’s grace in being willing to know and hear others. This, for me, is how we become.

Don’t be afraid. Be focused. Be determined. Be hopeful. Be empowered.

Good relationships feel good. They feel right. They don’t hurt.

failure is a feeling long before it’s an actual result.

I was deeply, delightfully in love with a guy whose forceful intellect and ambition could possibly end up swallowing mine.

If you don’t get out there and define yourself, you’ll be quickly and inaccurately defined by others.

It’s the price of leadership to do the thing you believe has to be done at the time it must be done.

It is always in my mind still that I can crush anybody. That’s not an issue. But I think that is the same for most athletes. If you don’t believe you can win tournaments anymore, then you can’t do it.

You got to believe in yourself. Hell, I believe I’m the best-looking guy in the world and I might be right.

As long as anti-gay legislation exists in any state, I strongly believe big events such as the Final Four and Super Bowl should not be held in those states’ cities.

I believe that one reason why the church of God at this present moment has so little influence over the world is because the world has so much influence over the church.

Do you believe in life after love?

The present state of atomic theory is characterized by the fact that we not only believe the existence of atoms to be proved beyond a doubt, but also we even believe that we have an intimate knowledge of the constituents of the individual atoms.

I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it.