Mine is not a story to tell struggling writers.

In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson.

They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.

The difference between an optimist and a pessimist? An optimist laughs to forget, but a pessimist forgets to laugh.

I come from very common stock, and I've always been uncomfortable with pretension and all the forms it can take, including disingenuous broadcasting.

You can make a new friend but you can't make an old one.

That's what the American odyssey is really about: Leaving home. Leaving home and coming home, and trying to understand the difference.

In the America I see from here, anything is possible - especially the impossible.

Americans are generally very self-sufficient and I think generally averse to pretension, just as I am.

Professor Al Drake encouraged me to just write the way I talk. I decided if that's what I needed to do, I didn't need to be in school to do it.

Like most Alaska immigrants, my roots continue to petition for equal time.

Intelligence is Attractive, Kindness is Heart Melting, But a combination of the two is Irresistible.

Gross Domestic Product—the substitution, in effect, of ideas for physical value.

Sometimes we only bow but wecannot standand we only know but we cannot understand.

I'm not sad about any of my life. It's so unconventional. It doesn't look anything like I thought it would.

It doesn't hurt to feel sad from time to time.

Stay disciplined, work hard, always believe in your dreams and go after them.

A physician who treated mental cases says that he based his diagnosis on the way his patients moved: "The body never lies" was his maxim.

Lies come from fear, from cowardice.

I'd like to say I'd like to be as big as a Gwen or a Madonna, but I think those days of achieving that level are over. The media is bringing everybody down.

Everything about my life is about winning a national championship