“The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too … raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.”

Higher forces must be experienced directly, and that takes effort. That means you'll face the same stark choice I did: demand proof that you'll never receive, or use the tools in the face of your doubts. When I stopped thinking and focused on the tools, my reward was life changing faith.

It’s a paradox; only when you desire fear, will you be able to take action in its presence—which is what courage consists of.

Fear is almost always linked to an image you have of something terrible happening in the future. To develop courage, you have to give up this illusion of future certainty.

There’s a hidden, inner strength that you cannot find unless you push yourself through adversity.

The Comfort Zone is supposed to keep your life safe, but what it really does is keep your life small.

A few rare individuals refuse to live limited lives. They drive through tremendous amounts of pain—from rejections and failures to shorter moments of embarrassment and anxiety. They also handle the small, tedious pain required for personal discipline, forcing themselves to do things we all know we should do.

Most of us choose avoidance instead. As a result, we don’t live up to our potential, never becoming fully ourselves.

The more intense the pain—and the more aggressively you move into it—the more energy you’ll create.

The extent to which all people in our society are made to count, and believe that they count, is not just a measure of decency; it makes sound economic sense.

How many McDonald's gift certificates would it take to sway a lot of Americans to pledge to never publicly criticize the U.S, President?

When you're shooting a network television show it inevitably starts airing a few episodes in, and depending on the ratings and the response from the public, you find yourself tweaking your performance or the scripts go in a different direction.

When people think Arsenal had a bad season and we've had a good one, yet they still finish above us, it hurts.

The jazz trombone is a magical experience particularly to hear and listen too.

It doesn't matter to me if I'm in love with my performance, so I watch all of my performances to understand and learn from them and figure out what's working and what's not. And I see the movies that I'm in in the theater a lot.

There is a holy, mistaken zeal in politics, as well as in religion. By persuading others, we convince ourselves.

For years, there was no man in the house when my husband was off on law cases in the Far East. Without writing, I would have been bored and unfaithful, maybe both, and the children would have been hideously over-protected.

I'm cursed with empathy. I'm also by nature way too opinionated.

I eat five to seven meals a day and a couple of protein shakes.

The social inefficiency of capitalism is going to clash at some point with the technological innovations capitalism engenders, and it is out of that contradiction that a more efficient way of organising production and distribution and culture will emerge.

I remember the first book I bought, when I was about 11... Dad said, 'What have you got that for? What are libraries for?'

A lot of fans that recognize me go, 'I kind of hate you,' and I'm all, 'Cool, well, you've just made this sufficiently awkward.'

My guitar is a mutation between a classic Fender Stratocaster guitar, which I played for years, and a Gibson solid-body like an SG or a Les Paul. It contains all sounds of the basic classic rock n' roll guitars. It does what I want it to do.

You don't have to control your thoughts. You just have to stop letting them control you.

Remember that you only get a limited time on this earth. Today is a good day to do something that makes you feel happy.

My parents had a difficult divorce. My dad had to take a backseat for a few years, and my grandfather came in. He was also my inspiration for becoming an actor. I really respected him.

The period from 2001 to 2005 was really tough. My films were not working even though there was an acceptance of a model. I was depressed but did not cry. I cry when I am happy.

Working on 'Newsroom' has given me an appreciation of the struggle that you go through on the 24-hour news cycle. The people who are legitimately attempting to deliver honest news are really facing a tough, uphill climb that's a lot harder than any other time in history.

I live my life very clean and transparent - so I have nothing to hide.

It would be good if teachers could genuinely understand that black English is not mistakes, it's just different English, and that what you want to do is add an additional dialect to black students' repertoire rather than teaching them out of what's thought of as a bad habit, like sloppy posture or chewing with your mouth open.

I was afraid people wouldn't take me seriously, or would stop respecting me, if I talked about how bad I was feeling. The only people I talked openly about it with was my business partner, Dave Jilk, and my girlfriend - now wife - Amy Batchelor. They were amazingly supportive, but even then, I was deeply ashamed about my weaknesses.

We desire an expansion of relations with regional states and the establishment of extensive public contacts.

You know you're going to have a good day when your morning begins with breakfast in the same room as Carrie Tiffany, David Vann and Lionel Shriver.