“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.”

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go…”

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”

“Don’t lose heart if it’s very difficult at times, everything will come out all right and nobody can in the beginning do as he wishes.”

“Happiness is a state of mind, a choice, a way of living; it is not something to be achieved, it is something to be experienced.”

“The story of my recent life.’ I like that phrase. It makes more sense than ‘the story of my life’, because we get so many lives between birth and death. A life to be a child. A life to come of age. A life to wander, to settle, to fall in love, to parent, to test our promise, to realize our mortality- and in some lucky cases, to do something after that realization.”

“It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique. It’s not easy, but if you accept your misfortune and handle it right your perceived failure can become a catalyst for profound re-invention.”