The one important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one's work seriously and taking one's self seriously. The first is imperative and the second is disastrous.

Work as if you were to live a hundred years. Pray as if you were to die tomorrow.

If people work for me over the years, I expect them to be paid what they're owed, but I don't expect them to be paid more than they earn.

Confidence doesn't come out of nowhere. It's a result of something... hours and days and weeks and years of constant work and dedication.

For the last several years and culminating in six months in orbit next year, I've been training for my third space flight. This one is almost in a category completely different than the previous two, specifically to live in on the space station for six months, to command a space ship and to fly a new rocket ship.

Around '93, '94, the conventional wisdom about the Internet was that it was a toy for academics and researchers. So it was very, very underestimated for about two years.

I sought my father in the world of the black musician, because it contained wisdom, experience, sadness and loneliness. I was not ever interested in the music of boys. From my youngest years, I was interested in the music of men.

As far as feeling freedom in my career now versus five years ago... I think if I feel any more free it's simply because of the experiences that I've had, and the wisdom I've accumulated from that time.

It may almost be a question whether such wisdom as many of us have in our mature years has not come from the dying out of the power of temptation, rather than as the results of thought and resolution.

I think we are evolving rapidly into one world culture. It's certainly one world economy. With billions of people online, I think we'll appreciate the wisdom in many different traditions as we learn more about them. People were very isolated and didn't know anything about other religions 100 years ago.

Spending two years on my uncle's ranch in Montana as a young man gave me the wisdom and the thrust to do westerns.

Wisdom is not attained by years, but by ability.

There was a period of 10 years where the conventional wisdom was Black shows don't sell overseas, therefore nobody is interested.

After eight years of fighting, and multiple rounds of chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation, my mother lost her battle with cancer. I think about her every day. I miss her terribly, and wish she were there to walk me down the aisle at my wedding and to cheer when my sister received her college diploma.

I watched John Goodman in 'Barton Fink,' or Paul Giamatti stealing a scene in 'My Best Friend's Wedding,' and I would think, That's me in 10 or 12 years.

I've always worn my wedding band when I'm working out. A few years ago I realized how dangerous wearing a metal band could be and switched to silicone.

Kanye has been a good friend for ten years. He flew back from London to Los Angeles for 24 hours just to go to my wedding.

I've had the kind of complex life I write about. I was a single mother for 12 years. I'd been engaged. The wedding fell through. I then discovered I was pregnant and opted to have the child on my own. I was a professor. I was in my mid-30s. I could manage it financially.

I was a wedding planner's assistant for years. And I knew I did not want to have a traditional wedding because I had worked a million of them. So my husband and I got married at a sleepaway camp in the Berkshires.

Sure, men like a challenge - but so do women. And nobody likes to be challenged all the time. I know plenty of long-standing happy couples who slept together right away, spent hours yakking on the phone, split checks down the middle, and lived together for years before the wedding.

I am happy. I have a wonderful marriage. I was in a not-great second marriage for 20 years, then I fell in love with Steve, my first husband, again, and we remarried. I wore the dress from our first wedding in 1982 - it was tight, but I could get into it.

I met Jason on a charity walk in 2001, and we got married on a friend's boat in Panama two years later. It was the perfect wedding for two people who'd already been married and who weren't teenagers.

My friends asked me to be a reverend at their wedding in France a few years ago. I went on the Internet, and within 15 seconds, I was printing out a certificate which allowed me to officiate at their wedding.

I love rings, but I can't wear them. I mean, look at my knuckles. My fingers and joints are so swollen from years of playing. That means no wedding band, either. Luckily, I have a very understanding wife.