Poverty was the greatest motivating factor in my life.
I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.
You gotta try your luck at least once a day, because you could be going around lucky all day and not even know it.
I’ve seen a jillion miracles. They’re all around. Every green leaf is a miracle.
Do what you say you’re going to do. And try to do it a little bit better than you said you would.
Be yourself. Because if people don’t like you as you are, they’re not going to like you as somebody you’re trying to be.
I made more money yesterday than I ever thought I’d make in an entire lifetime. But it’s like somebody’s going to take it all away from me and I’ll be back in Texas, installing them damned irrigation wells. I didn’t like that when I was sixteen. And I know I wouldn’t like it when I’m eighty.
God is bigger than people think.
I won’t go hunting with you, Jake, but I’ll go chasing women.
A lot of things I am, and a lot of things I am not. But I think I’m about as good an American as there is. I love this country. It’s been very, very good to me. And it will be good to anybody if they are willing to give of themselves.
Somebody said he came from New Orleans, where he got in a fight over a Cajun queen. And a crushing blow from a huge right hand, sent a Louisiana fella to the Promised Land.
I used to help my granddaddy make sausage. He would mix it up in a cleaned-out washtub with his hands, no gloves. Man, if we did anything like that today, they would jack the jail up and throw us under it.