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

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

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 find awards frivolous. When I began my career, I was told that I deserved an award for a certain performance, but then I couldn't turn up on the day of the show. Then I was told that the award went to someone else. That's when I realised the truth behind it all.

ISIS controls a territory roughly the size of Maryland where 8 million people live. If it's attacked and toppled, who will fill the void?

When I first started talking about running for office, a lot of people said to me, 'Don't let the consultants change you,' and I'd always assured them that I wouldn't allow it to happen. But like it or not, I had to change. Not because of a consultant, but because I started to understand the cost of a stupid mistake.

It's not a problem to be surrounded by other writers if that's the craft that you're doing. I suppose if you get obsessed with the notion of being a writer more than the writing itself, that would be bad. But I live near really smart, thoughtful people who take writing very seriously, and I can meet them for breakfast and talk books.

My outlook was, 'You're not my moms; you can't tell me what to do.' I got expelled from about 20 schools.

With actors like Steve McQueen, Paul Newman and Harrison Ford, what made them such icons is that even in dramatic movies, their characters had a sense of humor.

When my father was a young actor, it is absolutely true that the vast majority were fairly middle class. Then all of a sudden, people like Albert Finney burst through and turned all that on its head.

History has shown that a government's redistribution of shrinking wealth, in preference to a private sector's creation of new sources of it, can prove more destructive than even the most deadly enemy.

Although I've said a million times that I'm not a horror writer, I do like horror.

Speed is more important than endurance in the decathlon.

Male figure skating is different than female figure skating; we're not America's sweetheart.

I feel partly American, but I have an ambiguous relation with both America and India, the only two countries I really know. I never feel fully one way or the other.

I'm constantly revising. Once the book is written and typed, I go through the entire draft again.

Terrible and sublime thought, that every moment is supreme for some man and woman, every hour the apotheosis of some passion!

It's impossible to compare two bands. It would be like comparing two lovers.

I don't just think regular season. I think playoffs. World Series. That's how I think.

Generally speaking, the public appetite for criminal justice policy is just tough talk.

Don't forget to eat a lot of greens and fish oil pills. Those are two of the best things to keep your skin glowing.

The great drama of Russian history has been between its state and society. Put simply, Russia has always had too much state and not enough society.

They call me before they go into production, when they have a prototype, and they call legitimate saxophonists, too. As opposed to the other kind.

Women absolutely deserve respect.

It's a story of little girls who are pressed into working in sweat shops in games, who spend all day doing repetitive grinding tasks like making shirts, which are then converted into gold and sold on eBay.

I don't know anyone actually who does care what a critic says.

I have confidence in mining. I see exciting opportunities in it.