Any degree of success or achievement for me is only ever a relief. My version of getting carried away is: 'Mmm, that wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.'
The real achievement of Woody Allen was that he was making movies that felt very personal, and for a whole group of people, it spoke to them. Then he became an archetype, like Groucho Marx or Chaplin.
These are some of my awards - an Ivor Novello, a Variety Club Silver Heart, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame. I also have a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame and a street named after me in Brooklyn where I used to live.
From 1801, Napoleon began an ambitious programme of civil reform to standardise law and justice, centralise education, introduce uniform weights and measures and a fully functioning internal market. That achievement alone makes him one of the giants of history.
The construction of an airplane is simple compared with the evolutionary achievement of a bird. If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes.
We are working essentially to build a leadership force of folks who will, during their first two years of teaching, actually put their kids on a different trajectory - not just survive as a new teacher, but actually help close the achievement gap for their kids.
Ultimately, my greatest achievement is maintaining my career while sustaining a happy marriage and kids.
Amazingly enough, athletic achievement is one of those things that seems larger than life at points. I think we all look to sport for inspirations.
If Jeff Bezos and I had started Amazon.com in a poverty-stricken corner of Africa, there would have been no job creation because there would be no people to buy the stuff from Amazon.com. The difference here is the American middle class, which is by every measure the most extraordinary economic achievement in the history of the world.
Desire is creation, is the magical element in that process. If there were an instrument by which to measure desire, one could foretell achievement.
The hardest achievement in acting - in my opinion, anyway - is nailing a role that absolutely nobody else could have played. Pacino owned Michael Corleone... but DeNiro could have owned it as well. Who else, though, but Val Kilmer could have nailed Jim Morrison? Does anyone besides Will Ferrell pull off Ron Burgundy?
This is the great crisis in football now. It's not just Rangers; it's a lot of clubs. Big clubs always create more debt despite the huge income they have. It's almost an achievement, isn't it? They make so much money, and yet, still, their debts rise and rise and rise. How does that happen? It's absurd.
Meeting Stevie Wonder was a massive, lifetime achievement for me. He's one of the sweetest people. I sense a kindred spirit in him, and I hope he'd say the same. Actually, he did.
'The War' is a stunning achievement in filmmaking.
In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way - an honorable way - in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment.
I do not equate productivity to happiness. For most people, happiness in life is a massive amount of achievement plus a massive amount of appreciation. And you need both of those things.
Pretension is a poor joke that you play on yourself. Snap out of it. Recognise your strengths, work on your weaknesses. Real achievement is liking what you see in the mirror every morning.
Mother Teresa's detractors have accused her of overemphasizing Calcuttans' destitution and of coercing conversion from the defenseless. In the context of lost causes, Mother Teresa took on battles she knew she could win. Taken together, it seems to me, the criticisms of her work do not undermine or topple her overall achievement.
Even the mundane task of washing dishes by hand is an example of the small tasks and personal activities that once filled people's daily lives with a sense of achievement.
The fact that monasticism preceded the identification of greed as a primal sin is an important reminder that our very ability to name sin is a theological achievement.
I think it's always a really stupid thing to base your achievement on someone else. I just want to base it on myself... do something that I can be proud of, and then I'll be happy.
Unfortunately, the real achievements of children on the ground became debased and devalued because Labor education secretaries sounded like Soviet commissars praising the tractor production figures when we know that those exams were not the rock-solid measures of achievement that children deserve.
Every great achievement is but a small peak in the mountain range of contributions.
If you ask me why I've succeeded, it's because I was in the Royal Marines. You have this unbelievable sense of achievement and of overcoming adversity. That's the confidence it breeds.
If I were to look back at my career, I think my greatest achievement is very simple. I've been able to make choices where I could glorify God.
You cannot compare your athletic achievement to the importance of children and giving them a safe environment in which to grow up and enjoy life.
The Vancouver Olympics was the first competition where I completed the short and free programs without any mistakes, and that in itself was a huge achievement.
Passion is the driver of achievement in all fields. Some people love doing things they don't feel they're good at. That may be because they underestimate their talents or haven't yet put the work in to develop them.
I couldn't do everything in the first or second day; it took me years to be able to get to the achievement that I've had. I wasn't perfect from the beginning.
Praise your children more than you correct them. Praise them for even their smallest achievement.
Hopefully in the future, generational challenges will be measured by achievement, not gender.
Life is hard, and a lot of people come home tired from work. If they're gonna spend half an hour reading, they want some entertainment and a sense of achievement. So that's what I give them. That's all I'm trying to do. Is that really so wrong?
I knew very little or nothing about the Olympics. Having qualified was itself a big achievement for me, and then being there was quite overwhelming. Although I lost in the opening round, but the fact that I fought well was enough for me to take away from Athens.
The states that have large in-migrations of Hispanics are Florida, Texas and California. And Florida and Texas are way above average in educational achievement, while California's the lowest, just about.
My greatest achievement is being able to write records that are real snapshots of what's going on in my life. I won't repeat myself for the sake of commerce, or to please other people.
It seems like every year Hollywood makes an attempt to retell the Manson story, and I just couldn't be less interested in it. It's not really our crowning achievement as a civilisation. I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, but it just bores me.