I believe a 'talented' person is one who has learned how to effectively cultivate and polish any of the many desirable capabilities with which most of us are born but few of us nurture.

To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.

Success is achieved by developing our strengths, not by eliminating our weaknesses.

Know how and how much to tip people who expect gratuities, even in the case of poor service.

Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent.

Working in an office with an array of electronic devices is like trying to get something done at home with half a dozen small children around. The calls for attention are constant.

Be able to hiccup silently, or at least without alerting neighbors to your situation. The first hiccup is an exception.

Be able to analyze statistics, which can be used to support or undercut almost any argument.

Skill is successfully walking a tightrope between the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center. Intelligence is not trying.

Know the official post office abbreviations for all 50 states without having to consult a list.

There's plenty of intelligence in the world, but the courage to do things differently is in short supply.

I've never made the separation between, say, the museum and the hardware store. I mean, I enjoy both of them, and I want to combine the two.

The more I learn about the evolution of ideas, the more I have become aware that I am simply an unrepentant Old Whig-with the stress on the "old.

I'm kind of a hermit. Left to my own devices, I won't submerge myself in anything further afield than the driveway.

Pugsley's First Law of Government: All government programs accomplish the opposite of what they are designed to achieve.

True love means you love the real person, not an ideal that you have in your head and superimpose over them. That's illusion and lies to me.

I am a great admirer of other actors, but I never compete with other actors. I always compete with what I did last, and I'm my own most vicious critic. So I'm always trying to do it better.

[Imagination] must be visited constantly, or else it begins to become restless and emit strange bellows at embarrassing moments; ignoring it only makes it grow larger and noisier.

Behind every stock is a company. Find out what it's doing.

Access to knowledge is the superb, the supreme act of truly great civilizations. Of all the institutions that purport to do this, free libraries stand virtually alone in accomplishing this mission.

A rapper is about being completely true to yourself. Being an actor is about changing who you are.