Who you are is defined by the values you are willing to struggle for.

What determines your success isn’t “What do you want to enjoy?” The question is, “What pain do you want to sustain?”

People who enjoy the stresses and uncertainty of the starving artist lifestyle are ultimately the ones who live it and make it.

happiness requires struggle. The positive is the side effect of handling the negative. You can only avoid negative experiences for so long before they come roaring back to life.

The quality of your life is not determined by the quality of your positive experiences but the quality of your negative experiences. And to get good at dealing with negative experiences is to get good at dealing with life.

99% of your thoughts are useless.

You have the ability to decide what you think. Or, you can choose NOT to think.

“How do I train myself to stop thinking useless thoughts?” Awareness. That’s where it starts. Every time you start drifting off, become aware of it. Just observe your brain. Step outside yourself and just observe the crazy shit you’re thinking about.

Set priorities on Sunday. I outline my weekly priorities and what I want to have accomplished by the following Sunday.

Map out work, play, fit, and push. Work: For each day, I outline my “Top 3,” meaning the three most important things I will have accomplished by the end of the day.

Play: Play enables me to self-express, reflect, and give my ideas space, which shows up positively in my work.

Fit: Movement keeps ideas moving forward so I aim to move my body for at least 30 minutes each day.

Push: Since learning and growth is important to me, I do something that scares me (almost) every day. This may be asking someone whom I deeply respect for an interview or writing about a topic that makes me feel vulnerable.

Batch your days. Batching actions into specific days and creating time for creativity.

CREATE on Monday/Wednesday/Friday: I create holes in my schedule for thinking and creating. On these days, I pay attention to my body and take breaks as needed.

CALLS and MEETINGS on Tuesday/Thursday: When possible, I avoid phone calls and meetings because I find them typically unproductive and often easy to solve via email.

SPONTANEOUS Saturday: With so much structure, I make room for spontaneity. On Saturday, I let go and go where the day takes me. Balancing structure with a day of free-spiritedness makes me feel whole.

INTENTIONAL Sunday: Plan for the week ahead.

I don't think I was all that late in becoming a father.

I've spent about that amount of time trying to tell the public that there was purpose in... my business, my career and the roller coaster ride... how the people I associated with worked together.

Books are mind reading devices; they allow us free access to the thoughts and dreams of people we have never met.

I always say, 'Man, the Creator is preparing me for something. He's keeping the sun on me for some reason. He's keeping me aligned with that generation.' Because I genuinely love people, I love hip-hop, and I love using it as a tool to communicate and to create a better vibration.

Your best days are still out in front of you.

When you act in a film, you're inevitably surrounded by people you didn't choose, right down to the set painter. I like being able to pick the family I'm waking up to in the morning that's going to make this group effort to tell a story that applies to what's interesting to me at that stage in my life.

Be just and if you can't be just, be arbitrary.

The nature of Shinto speaks to our human nature . Shinto speaks to us, to something in us which is deep and permanent.

I tore up my knee break dancing. I have no idea how that happened. Apparently these legs are meant for swimming, but not dancing. I was watching an MTV video, thinking, 'I can do this.' Definitely not. I heard a pop. I sat down and it blew up like a watermelon. I had to go to the hospital and get surgery.

The thing the sixties did was to show us the possibilities and the responsibility that we all had. It wasn't the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility.

The action genre is kind of designed for a young male audience. But we found on 'The Matrix' that we hit the Valhalla of movie making, which is the four quadrant audience - the young male audience, the older male audience, the young female audience and the older female audience.

It was like that for the first six months after 'E.T.' was in cinemas. I'd go out and get mobbed. I was a shy kid, and being approached by adults all the time just freaked me out.

The question was, in a sense, at Princeton Review, how much value was I adding as a public company CEO. I was adding less than other people might've... I think you want to move on when you've given your best work and then feel that you're not going to add as much value moving forward.

I still have moments when I close myself in, but I wouldn't be on the path that I am with the career that I've had if I didn't have a deep understanding of the sense of my inner freedom.

Whoever wishes to keep a secret must hide the fact that he possesses one.

What we need is an electronic encyclopedia of life, with one page for each species. On each page is given everything known about that species.

'Little Miss Sunshine' was really important to me.

Most musicians count at the beginning, and never count and talk to their musicians after that. They only talk to them at the end of the song. But I would count with them and talk.

When you're doing a movie, your body doesn't allow you to get sick until you finish.

I did that film just so I could kiss Robert Redford.

You never get the role you have worked so hard for, but the dream role, the one who gives you joy, money and maybe even honor, that one just falls into your lap.

I liked 'Diff'rent Strokes' up until about the last three or four years. I was bored.

I feel at home when I go to London.

In the Catholic tradition, the idea of giving something up on a Friday - the act of self denial - has always been tied with being generous to those in need.