Optimistic people play a disproportionate role in shaping our lives. Their decisions make a difference; they are inventors, entrepreneurs, political and military leaders - not average people. They got to where they are by seeking challenges and taking risks.
When I started my last business, I didn't receive a paycheck for 13 months. The average person can't handle that pressure.
I've always been a workaholic. I reckon, on average, I've had less than one day a year off in my working career.
If ergonomists have their way, future products won't be built for some hypothetical average person but will conform to the biomechanical needs of whatever particular human body happens to come into contact with them.
TV has gotten perhaps better than your average film script, but at the same time, it's fun to give it all you've got for a few months and produce a story.
Educating girls just one year beyond the average fourth grade education increases their eventual earnings by 10 to 20 percent. Every additional year of secondary education can increase future wages by 15 to 25 percent.
Al Gore, the former vice-president of the United States, lives in a mansion that uses more electricity than the average family's bungalow! David Suzuki rides on a bus that uses more fuel than a Smart car to get across Canada! Oh my God! And this is just the tip of the vanishing iceberg!
I think it is immensely difficult to get the U.S. interested in non-U.S. topics. I don't think this is because the average American reader is disinterested, but more because of publishers playing it safe: if a thriller based in L.A. is a sure winner, why spend money plugging one based in Paris - or Bangkok?
I used to break a lot of clubs. I probably was a little different than your average junior player. I did have a lot longer hair and a lot more brown hair. But my demeanor, you know, really from maybe my second, third year on Tour, has gotten a lot more even keel.
Look at the average American diet: ice cream, butter, cheese, whole milk, all this fat. People don't realize how much of this stuff you get by the end of the day. High blood pressure is from all this high-fat eating.
I played every sport in high school for one year. If I couldn't be great at it, I quit. I would rather not do it than be average.
The West begins where the average annual rainfall drops below twenty inches. Water is important to people who do not have it, and the same is true of control.
The average person in Hollywood just assumes that if you're on a hit TV show, then that's the first thing you've ever done.
The average American returning from a trip abroad likely - and understandably - assumes the contents of his or her electronic device does not come close to meeting the threshold of 'criminal' activity, such as would give a government agent the right to seize and peruse their iPad just because they are returning from a vacation.
Women of the working class, especially wage workers, should not have more than two children at most. The average working man can support no more and and the average working woman can take care of no more in decent fashion.
It will always be the same possibilities, in sum or on the average, that go on repeating themselves until a man comes along who does not value the actuality above idea. It is he who first gives the new possibilities their meaning, their direction, and he awakens them.
I think I can capture the taste buds of the average right-wing conservative who loves barbecue.
Paul McCartney had a baby when he was 61; Rod Stewart was 66; Rupert Murdoch was a stunning 72. Not only does that mean they'll have less stamina than the average dad, that means they'll, well, check out a lot sooner too.
A good project but a poor director will always make a mediocre film, but an average script and good director can make a good film, as he will put in everything to make the film look good.
I don't have sophisticated tastes. I have average tastes. If you looked in my collection of DVDs, you'd see 'Jaws' and 'Star Wars.' In the book library, you'd see John Grisham and Sidney Sheldon. And if you look in my fridge, it's, like, children's food - chips, milkshakes, yogurt.
In some ways, people forget about average working people, and how they live their lives.
The average customer comes into McDonald's three to four times a month, and I'm absolutely convinced that can fit in very comfortably into a balanced diet.
When all of a sudden you're successful and sought after overnight, you are instantly opened to a lot of sides of humanity that the average person is never going to see. And those can often be pretty disheartening, and it can make somebody pretty lonely.
I want to be the kind of elected official who not only pays attention but who acts on behalf of people - just average people. Fancy lobbyists get to tell their story, but the average person doesn't.
The average actor might only be able to book six to eight guest star jobs a year - that would be high. So when you start doing the math, you can't live on that in Los Angeles.
I have written 30,000 words in a month - think of it - 30,000! I hope I am putting the right number of naughts: an average of a thousand words a day! For thirty days!
Yes, it is long past time we get serious about tackling the nation's ever-growing deficits. But the average American family drawn into serious debt cannot just threaten to stiff its creditors. It must cut its spending in the future, but also take responsibility for the debt incurred in the past.
I was stranded in Disco. I went to dozens of darkened places with enough flashing lights to drive the average person mad. I felt lost in the pulse of sheer panic.
If you put me in the fairway at my average distance into a par 4, 175 to 180 yards, and you put another player in the rough 120 yards from the green, over time, I'm going to wear him out.
I grew up in an average middle-class family. I don't think I even knew any friends who were fostered or adopted.
I was a good amateur but only an average professional. I soon realized that there was a limit to how far I could rise in the music business, so I left the band and enrolled at New York University.
The average person pushes an elevator button 6 or 7 minutes before realizing it's not working. I did a study on this, you know.
I was a very average player and became a trainer in Germany with a special club.
The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure.
I don't care if the average guy on the street really knows what I'm like, as long as he knows I'm not really a mean, vicious guy. My friends and family know what I'm really like. That's what's important.
On average, people should be more skeptical when they see numbers. They should be more willing to play around with the data themselves.
