“How can you spend hours every day trying in small ways to figure out who you are, then have a near-stranger give you a sentence of yourself that says it better than you ever could?”

“You have to find out for yourself. Take the leap. Go as far as you can. Try staying out of touch. Become a stranger in a strange land. Acquire humility. Learn the language. Listen to what people are saying.”

Paul Theroux (1941) American travel writer and novelist

“Always try to associate yourself with and learn as much as you can from those who know more than you do, who do better than you, who see more clearly than you.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

“Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say.”

Barbara Kingsolver (1955) American author, poet and essayist

“He used to say to his melancholia patients:
"You can be cured in fourteen days if you follow this prescription. Try to think every day how you can please someone.”

Alfred Adler (1870–1937) Medical Doctor, Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist, Personality Theorist

“You have to ration your opponents' victories. You have to mete them out, slowly and meanly. You have to make your opponents subliminally grateful for every little bit of compliance. That way you get away with giving up ten small losses a day, rather than ten big ones.”

Lee Child book Gone Tomorrow

“At first I got lots of discouragement from friends and stranger who are loser! You know what these people kept telling me? They kept saying, 'Well Tom Vu, you a crazy nut, here you are, a poor immigrant, poor minority, speak no English, no contact, on and on, and you trying to be rich in America! You crazy, man! Look at people out there! They smarter than you are, they not even rich! Who are you to try?' And you know what? I have to keep telling these people every time, I kept saying, 'You are loser! Get out of my way! I make it somehow!”

Tom Vu (1957) Americnan poker player

“One set of circumstances does not complete you. Maybe nothing ever does. So you work on your life and you work on your 'work' and you try to live every single day like it's your last. And you try to be better, to yourself and to others. I don't always succeed. But I try and it's my goal.”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

“Having the security of being in a series week in, week out gives you great flexibility; you can experience with yourself, try a different scene different ways. If you make a mistake one week, you can look at it and say, 'Well, I won't do that again,' and you're still on the air next week.”

Clint Eastwood (1930) actor and director from the United States

“I would fight the world for you, but I'm damned if I can figure out how to save you from yourself.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga