The first requisite for success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary.

There are three modes of bearing the ills of life, by indifference, by philosophy, and by religion.

Times of great calamity and confusion have been productive for the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace. The brightest thunder-bolt is elicited from the darkest storm.

Wealth after all is a relative thing since he that has little and wants less is richer than he that has much and wants more.

On the back of comic books in the 1970s, there was something called the American Seed Company. They would send you a cardboard box full of seeds; kids would sell them door-to-door in the neighborhood and then pick from a catalog of prizes. I bought myself a watch that way.

A billion could live off the earth; 6 billion living as we do is far too many, and you run out of planet in no time.

I no longer say I'm unemployed. I say I'm unemployable. It's different. An unemployed suggests at a certain point in the future, you might be employed. That's not the case with me. I'm unemployable, and unfortunately, that's one of the bits of the web, in particular of Google.

I like that feeling of letting loose, of not planning every step. The best performances are the ones that you just let happen.