You can't control the success or failure of a thing you work on. You can only control the thing you work on.

Everyday has the potential to be the greatest day of your life

I'm past patiently waitin,' I'm passionately smashin' every expectation, every action's an act of creation.

I try to let my decisions be guided not by what I think will succeed or fail, but what I'm going to learn from that process.

When I get called in for stuff for Hollywood, I get to be the best friend of the Caucasian leadIf I want to play the main guy, I have found, I have to write it.

The distance between where I am and where I want to be seems impossibly large.

Ed Koch once said that New York City is where immigrants come to audition for America. That's what happened to my parents; that's what happened to me.

If you're thinking about the idea in the shower. If you're thinking about the idea while you're walking your dog, there's probably something to it.

I think if you want to make a recipe for making a writer, have them feel a little out of place everywhere, have them be an observer kind of all the time. And that's a great way to make a writer.

I'm not going to hang out with celebrities, I'm not going to parties. I have two songs due for Moana next week, and I'm going to go and spend some time with Maui and Moana in the ocean, in my mind.

I'm just like my country, I'm young, scrappy and hungry, and I'm not throwing away my shot.

I love the scent of winter. I love the scent of winter enough to suffer the cold for it.

It is as easy to give advice to yourself as to others, and as useless.

Barack Obama treated too lightly the people and forces determined to destroy him. They spat in his face and didn't even get ticketed for a misdemeanor.

A good listener is very nearly as attractive as a good talker. You cannot have a beautiful mind if you do not know how to listen.

We didn't have a beauty shop as I grew up.

Every conscious act requires risk. Every conscious act requires decision. Put these two facts together and you realize that the secret to life is not to avoid gambling but to gamble well.

The major concrete achievement of the women's movement of the 1970's was the Dutch treat.

I grew up in a military family. I was moved around from school to school, so people aren't always the most welcoming to new girls in school.

There are financial bankruptcies in many parts of the church. No question about that. But we see the possibility of reimagining and revitalizing the church.

Mistakes occur when a man is over-worked or over-confident.