“screw the diamonds, they're just dirt with an attitude.”

“In South Africa, they dig for diamonds. Tons of earth are moved to find a little pebble not as large as a little fingernail. The miners are looking for the diamonds, not the dirt. They are willing to lift all the dirt in order to find the jewels. In daily life, people forget this principle and become pessimists because there is more dirt than diamonds. When trouble comes, don’t be frightened by the negatives. Look for the positives and dig them out. They are so valuable it doesn't matter if you have to handle tons of dirt.”

“You know what turns dirt into diamonds?""Pressure. Weight. Heat...""The geological equivalent of torture.”

“Dirt's a funny thing,' the Boss said. 'Come to think of it, there ain't a thing but dirt on this green God's globe except what's under water, and that's dirt too. It's dirt makes the grass grow. A diamond ain't a thing in the world but a piece of dirt that got awful hot. And God-a-Mighty picked up a handful of dirt and blew on it and made you and me and George Washington and mankind blessed in faculty and apprehension. It all depends on what you do with the dirt. That right?”

“All photo albums are the same. Just like all dreams are the same. They mean the world to the person who owns them and they're boring as dirt to everybody else.”

“I was a wise-a** college student of twenty at the time and a precocious musician, with somewhat of that screw-you-I'm-a-jazz-player attitude.”