Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus.

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.

The day will come when the man at the telephone will be able to see the distant person to whom he is speaking.

Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.

The only difference between success and failure is the ability to take action.

The achievement of one goal should be the starting point of another.

Don't keep forever on the public road, going only where others have gone and following one after the other like a flock of sheep. Leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into the woods.

Great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the cooperation of many minds.

Sometimes we stare so long at a door that is closing that we see too late the one that is open.

You cannot force ideas. Successful ideas are the result of slow growth. Ideas do not reach perfection in a day, no matter how much study is put upon them.

First words on the first telephone - "Mr. Watson - come here - I want to see you."

...If I don't have twenty or thirty books right here, waiting to be read, I start jonesing. That's my compulsion.

Why do you write strong female characters?Because you're still asking me that question.

Most people like normality because they feel safe and comfortable around it.

We feel a private thrill, admit it, at the sight of beauty in flames. We wish to blast all the fine old things to oblivion and replace them with tasteless identicalstructures.

I thought marriage was something very quiet and very regular and very bourgeois.

I'm past doing one chin-up more than I did the day before. I just kind of do what I feel like.

Statues to great men are made of the stones thrown at them in their lifetime.

I love talking about clothes with women; it's like a code because women dress for women.

The right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example.

Sometimes you just want to write a party song.