“What some people wanted was sometimes too hard to get, and the stress of trying was sometimes too hard to deal with... Maybe doing well in life was just too hard for some people.”

“It's a hard life sometimes and the biggest temptation is to let how hard it is be an excuse to weaken”

“Sometimes when things get hard, we tend to set our sights on what's hard, that difficult thing that keeps us upset, and we turn our back on our strengths. ”

“People told me to give up trying to be special and settle down to a regular life. There ain't nothing wrong with a regular life, and that's the Lord's truth...But it wasn't for me, because I wanted to be something special...I knew how easy it was for a dream to die. I seen that all around me. You could let it die by just looking the other way—you know, some of those Asian people say they don't kill nothing, but they'll take a fish out of water and lay it on the ground and then say it just died on its own—you can do that with a dream, too. And sometimes you can get so frustrated, you feel so bad about your dream, that you go on and kill it yourself. When you do that, you're killing a piece of yourself, too." —Mr. Cephus”

“Cutting people out of your life is easy, keeping them in is hard.”

“(L)ife is like walking between two tall buildings on a tightrope. For some, the rope is wide enough and the walk is easy. For others, it's narrow and hard and maybe there's a strong wind blowing through their days”

“Hard work by itself isn't worth two cents on a rainy day if it doesn't give you a good life.”