Personal Journey Quotes

I've conducted the Boston Pops! Imagine that! Me! Maya Angelou! I've sang and danced at La Scala!

My giant goes with me wherever I go.

I dropped out of Reed College [Portland, Oregon] after the first six months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

I have spent my life going from mania to mania. Somehow it has all paid off.

Every time I look in the mirror, I see that kid from Louisville, Kentucky, staring back at me. His name was Cassius Clay.

When I was young, I was no one. Now, I'm worldwilde.

I got into Taekwondo when I was nine, and I started training Muay Thai and Brazilian Jujitsu later in life.

It takes half your life before you discover life is a do-it-yourself project.

Engineering didn't take to me. And what saved me and kept me in college was I ran into ROTC cadets who were in a fraternity called The Pershing Rifles. And I found my place. I found discipline. I found structure. I found people that were like me and I liked.

I was at Reed [College] for only a few months. My parents intended for me to stay there for all four years but I decided that college wasn't right for me. I had no idea what I wanted to do I didn't see how college was going to help me.

What I remember thinking at that point, having gone through both the ups and downs of my first four years, and seeing the sea of people was, "What a remarkable country this is and how lucky am I that we live in a place where the son of a single mom, not born into any kind of fame or fortune, in a pretty remote state somehow can end up be in a position to - to make a difference."

In my country we go to prison first and then become President.

I could not imagine that the future I was walking toward could compare in any way to the past that I was leaving behind.

You cant reach old age by another man's road, my habits protect my life but they would assassinate you

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country.... I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this.... It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me.

The record shows, I took the blows . And did it my way.

People have asked me, 'What would you have done if you hadn't gone into the Army?' I'd say I'd probably be a bus driver. I don't know.