"Unless you have prepared yourself to profit by your chance, the opportunity will only make you ridiculous. A great occasion is valuable to you just in proportion as you have educated yourself to make use of it."

"Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. Weak men wait for opportunities strong men make them."

"We make the world we live in and shape our own environment."

"The size of your accomplishments, the quality of your achievement, will depend very largely on how big a man you see in yourself, what sort of image you get of your possible self, yourself at your best."

"I really feel that I had a genuinely diverse, multicultural upbringing, and I just don't find New York to be quite as diverse. Maybe I'm romanticising, but I feel that I was exposed to a real melting pot in terms of culture and pop culture. My kids are essentially middle-class, but I do try to remind them that they come from humble beginnings."

"In both children and adults, there can be a hard-to-deny link between a robust sense of hope and either work productivity or academic achievement."

"Fortitude is the quiet voice at eventide saying: I will try once more tomorrow."

"I'm happy with what I've done but it's a challenge to try to win more."