“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

I never quit until I get what I want.

Genius is not inspired. Inspiration is perspiration.

The value of an idea lies in the using of it.

I find out what the world needs. Then I go ahead and try to invent it.

There seems to be no limit to which some men will go to avoid the labor of thinking. Thinking is hard work.

Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.

Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and the only thing he can’t afford to lose.

Great ideas originate in the muscles.

There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the real labor of thinking.

Continued innovation is the best way to beat the competition.

Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.

I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world.

I start where the last man left off.

I am 67, but I’m not too old to make a fresh start.

Each time you fail, you have eliminated another wrong option.

I’ve realized that most of my best ideas have followed a good night’s sleep.

The reason is that they define how I have gone about my business. I have trusted to intuition. I did it at the beginning. I do it even now. I have no idea how things might turn out, where in my writing I might go next.

I think it’s really important to have a life and have interests outside of this [movie] business, and not rely on this business to validate you as a human being. If you do that, you’re really in a dangerous spot.

Business first; pleasure afterwards.

The best part of making music, for me, is collaborating and working with new people and fresh sounds and all those things that get people excited to continue in this business that we all love so much.

The business of the poet and the novelist is to show the sorriness underlying the grandest things and the grandeur underlying the sorriest things.

I wanted to convey the message of how I do what I want and how I run my own business, and I’m a woman in charge. I want all of my fans to know that that’s possible and feel empowered when they listen to my music.

I think it’s possible to be multi-rooted, rather like a banyan tree, without being deracinated.

My business is not to remake myself, but to make the absolute best of what God made.