Most achievers I know are people who have made a strong and deep dedication to pursuing a particular goal. That dedication took a tremendous amount of effort.

There have been some friendships lost over this. That's the most difficult for me. I find it very uncomfortable to know that I was at one time close friends with someone, and because of jealousies and misunderstandings and so on, these friendships have dissolved.

My real father died when I was two years old, so I never knew him. He was a barber in Chicago.

In our case, finding a Lucy is unique. No one will ever find another Lucy. You can't order one from a biological supply house. It's a unique discovery, a unique specimen.

I was aware of it, but I grew up in a very a-religious family. My mother never went to church, she never had any religious training or background. It was never a part of our social interaction.

When I realized, in 1978, that Lucy did represent a new species of human ancestor, and that I had an opportunity to name this new species, I realized this was a revolutionary step in understanding human origins.

I was very intellectually oriented, very early on.

One has to devote oneself to a particular pursuit. To be successful at anything, you have to make a total commitment to it.

But it really wasn't until three to four years later, when we had an opportunity in the lab to make very detailed observations, and comparisons with other fossil discoveries, that we realized she was a new species of human ancestor.

And what I wanted to do was, I wanted to explore problems and areas where we didn't have answers. In fact, where we didn't even know the right questions to ask.

As an undergraduate, I had an opportunity to go on a number of archeological digs. So I had experience excavating, digging up remains of ancient Indian villages in the Midwest and in the Southwest.

When the first fossils began to be found in eastern Africa, in the late 1950s, I thought, what a wonderful marriage this was, biology and anthropology. I was around 16 years old when I made this particular choice of academic pursuit.

Most achievers I know are people who have made a strong and deep dedication to pursuing a particular goal. That dedication took a tremendous amount of effort.

I realized immediately that this was a terribly important discovery, but I didn't realize how important it would be until we had spent a lot of time in the laboratory studying it.

Normally, we are happy to find a fragment of jaw, a few isolated teeth, a bit of an arm, a bit of a skull. But to find associated body parts is extremely rare.

I think that many of my ideas are correct, but I'll bet you, before my death other discoveries will be made that will prompt me to alter various ideas I have about human evolution.

But what really excited me was the idea that humans had a tremendous pre-history that went back millions of years. I wanted to go to Africa to find some of these creatures.

Lucy brought with her an image of our human ancestors that you don't get when you find a jaw or an arm bone or a leg bone. Here was 40 percent of a single skeleton.

Scientists are very afraid of being proven wrong.

This was the most important discovery I had ever made in my life. It was a discovery which has irrevocably changed my whole life's direction. It immediately elevated me to the status of one of the world's leading anthropologists.

Commitment, belief and positive attitude are all important if you're going to be a success, whether you're in sports, in business or, as in my case, anthropology.

Evolution explains our biological evolution, but human beings are very unique creatures. As the Dobzhansky said, all animals are unique; humans are the uniquest. And that uniqueness of being human, language, art, culture, our dependency on culture for survival, comes from the combination of traditional biological evolution.

I don't think we interbred with the Neanderthals at all. There are some people who think that there was some level of interbreeding. I think that we look so biologically different, that we looked and we acted so different, and we culturally were so different that we would not have had interbreeding between two species.

We are placed in the genus of Homo, which is Latin for man - Homo sapiens: supposedly wise men. I sometimes think - wonder - whether we really are wise men.

What makes us human depends on what place on our evolutionary path we're talking about. If you go back six million years ago, what makes us human is that we were walking upright. That's all. If you go to 2.6 million years ago, it's the fact that we're designing and making stone tools.

What's changed is we now have good anatomical, geological, archaeological evidence that Neanderthals are not our ancestors. When I wrote 'Lucy,' I considered Neanderthals ancestors of modern humans. We have gone back twice the age of Lucy, six million years. And we see that upright bipedal walking goes back that far in time.

Where we are going as a species is a big question. Human evolution certainly hasn't stopped. Every time individuals produce a new zygote, there's a reshuffling and recombination of genes. And we don't know where all of that is going to take us.

One has to take initiative in life to achieve what he or she wants.

Confidence comes from hours and days and weeks and years of constant work and dedication.

The dedication of the United States Air Force, Special Forces, and others involved in the mission to tracking down terrorists can not be matched. We express our gratitude to these men and women who defend the freedom America represents.

Through persistent dedication, Susan B. Anthony, and other remarkable leaders, women were finally granted the right to vote in 1920.

While Mayor Daley surprised me today with his decision to not run for reelection, I have never been surprised by his leadership, dedication and tireless work on behalf of the city and the people of Chicago.

Public service must be more than doing a job efficiently and honestly. It must be a complete dedication to the people and to the nation.

Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.

The groups that have awarded them are all a little different. It's a little hard to single out any one for that, but I think the dedication of this building would have to go toward the top of the list.

We will ensure that associates continue to possess unsurpassed product knowledge and maintain their dedication to customer service and respect for their colleagues and for the communities in which they work and live.

Most of us serve our ideals by fits and starts. The person who makes a success of living is the one who sees his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication.

I think that with a lot of hard work and dedication, I feel that I could be the best in the world. I'm still only 35 years old... I have a fresh start physically and mentally, and I feel that I can achieve my goal to be the best again.

My brother Larry. He taught me how hard work and dedication to the game was the only way to make it. He's taken care of all my business activities for me and my family for many years, and I thank him for that.

To grasp the full significance of life is the actor's duty, to interpret it is his problem, and to express it his dedication.

I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.

The March on Washington was a culmination of years of hard work and dedication of many individuals.

The World Trade Center is a living symbol of man's dedication to world peace... a representation of man's belief in humanity, his need for individual dignity, his beliefs in the cooperation of men, and, through cooperation, his ability to find greatness.

Film editing is now something almost everyone can do at a simple level and enjoy it, but to take it to a higher level requires the same dedication and persistence that any art form does.

There is nothing wrong with dedication and goals, but if you focus on yourself, all the lights fade away and you become a fleeting moment in life.

I discovered that Robert Todd Lincoln was there for each of the first three assassinations. I wanted to write about the Lincoln Memorial, so when I found out he had attended its dedication, that helped focus it further.

We tell stories. We talk about statistics. And in 1978, we added an element of the show that gave it its heartbeat: the long distance dedication.

Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.

Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe.