I have not been a success, and probably never will be.

But the idea of a man making his living by writing seemed, in that hardy environment, so fantastic that even today I am sometimes myself assailed by a feeling of unreality.

Never the less, at the age of fifteen, having never seen a writer, a poet, a publisher or a magazine editor, and having only the vaguest ideas of procedure, I began working on the profession I had chosen.

I became a writer in spite of my environments.

The people among which I lived - and yet live, mainly - made their living from cotton, wheat, cattle, oil, with the usual percentage of business men and professional men.

Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.

It seems to me that many writers, by virtue of environments of culture, art and education, slip into writing because of their environments.

Never the less, it is no light thing to enter into a profession absolutely foreign and alien to the people among which one's lot is cast; a profession which seems as dim and faraway and unreal as the shores of Europe.

But whatever my failure, I have this thing to remember - that I was a pioneer in my profession, just as my grandfathers were in theirs, in that I was the first man in this section to earn his living as a writer.

I had neither expert aid nor advice. I studied no courses in writing; until a year or so ago, I never read a book by anybody advising writers how to write.

I have accomplished little enough, but such as it is, it is the result of my own efforts.

I have not been a success, and probably never will be.

While we may open the books of the past we may but grant flying glances of the future through the mist that veils it.

A kingdom is not lost by a single defeat.

Civilization is a network and a maze of precedences and custom.

Great success in examinations does naturally not as a rule go with originality of thought.

Achievement is not always success, while reputed failure often is. It is honest endeavor, persistent effort to do the best possible under any and all circumstances.

After my spectacular failures, I could not be satisfied with an ordinary success.

Some of the best lessons we ever learn are learned from past mistakes. The error of the past is the wisdom and success of the future.

The secret to success is to offend the greatest number of people.

I define success as being comfortable with yourself and your life. And that is about as good as it gets, really.

No one is guaranteed happiness. You can pursue it, but if you happen to find success along the way on that road to happiness, Conservatives believe you should not be demonized or penalized for it.

PR is extremely important, and being able to use it in the right way means everything. You have to market your success.

I sort of understood that when I first started: that you shouldn't repeat a success. Very often you're going to, and maybe the first time you do, it works. And you love it. But then you're trapped.

The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable, for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.

Success requires first expending ten units of effort to produce one unit of results. Your momentum will then produce ten units of results with each unit of effort.

When I meet successful people I ask 100 questions as to what they attribute their success to. It is usually the same: persistence, hard work and hiring good people.

It's fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.

The key to accepting responsibility for your life is to accept the fact that your choices, every one of them, are leading you inexorably to either success or failure, however you define those terms.

All business success rests on something labeled a sale, which at least momentarily weds company and customer.

Success is sweet and sweeter if long delayed and gotten through many struggles and defeats.

There's no such thing as an overnight success. It took me a long to get there.

The secret to my success is that I bit off more than I could chew and chewed as fast as I could.

Our brave soldiers and support personnel are engaged in a battle as important as any the United States has ever before waged, for the success of democracy in Iraq is a crucial test of the ideals this Nation was founded upon.

With the success of the last three or so years, when a lot of people start treating you differently, there's a danger that you may start to think of yourself differently. You rely on your friends to say, 'Hey, wake up!'

I attribute my success to this - I never gave or took any excuse.

A government for the people must depend for its success on the intelligence, the morality, the justice, and the interest of the people themselves.

And I, uh, I wonder how anybody can think his personality changes with his success. I've had quite a bit of success but I feel that I'm just the same person as I always was.

It's the thing that you do well that brings you to prominence. The very thing that brings you to success can also be like a curse, because then people think that's all you can do.

Success is where preparation and opportunity meet.

Change can either challenge or threaten us. Your beliefs pave your way to success or block you.

The system that enables the most people to earn the most success is free enterprise, by matching up people's skills, interests, and abilities. In contrast, redistribution simply spreads money around. Even worse, it attenuates the ability to earn success by perverting economic incentives.

Our success educationally, industrially and politically is based upon the protection of a nation founded by ourselves. And the nation can be nowhere else but in Africa.

And the success of the union movement, historically, has always been to benefit all working men and women - not just people who belong to the union.

My definition of success is control.

Well I sure had been looking for a comedy for years without any success.

A great social success is a pretty girl who plays her cards as carefully as if she were plain.

At this point, I can't say what network would be picking it up, but I know that it would be a success.

My formula for success is rise early, work late, and strike oil.