“If you should rise from Nowhere up to Somewhere, From being No one up to being Someone, Be sure to keep repeating to yourself You owe it to an arbitrary god Whose mercy to you rather than to others Won’t bear to critical examination. Stay unassuming. If for lack of license To wear the uniform of who you are, You should be tempted to make up for it In a subordinationg look or toe, Beware of coming too much to the surface And using for apparel hat was meant To be the curtain of the inmost soul.”

“Just be true to yourself, and listen as much as one is able to to other people whose opinions you respect and look up to but in the end it has to come from you. You can’t really worry too much by looking to the left and the right about what the competition is doing or what other people in your field are doing. It has to be a true vision.”

“A man should demand much from himself, but little from others. When you meet a man of worth, think how you may attain to his excellence. When you meet an unworthy one, then look within and examine yourself.”

“Look, no matter where you live, the biggest defect we human beings have is our shortsightedness. We don’t see what we could be. We should be looking at our potential, stretching ourselves into everything we can become. But if you’re surrounded by people who say ‘I want mine now,’ you end up with a few people with everything and a military to keep the poor ones from rising up and stealing it.”

“Making something secret makes it too important, elevates it to the point where it runs your life from the shadows. If you hide what's at your core from other people for too long, sooner or later you end up hiding it from yourself and waking up with no idea of who you are.”

“When you are from a well-respected family, often times you will have pressure to "live up to your family name." That is to say, depending on your family's reputation, you will have to live in accordance with that reputation so that other people keep thinking of your family in the way it is used to being thought of. If you come from a family of do-gooders, then it is important to do good. If you come from a family of investors, it is important to make lots of money. If you come from a family of plastic surgeons, you should know how to pick a nose. And if you do not live up to your family name, then possibly your family will disown you. Which isn't really nice, but can happen.”