Quotes from Chris Gardner

This part of my life, this little part, is called happiness.

Business school professors don't take selling seriously because they don't know how to sell. It's easy to talk about business theory and production time and just-in-time development. Selling is much more difficult.

I made a decision as a five-year-old boy that my kids will know who their father is.

The secret to success: find something you love to do so much, you can't wait for the sun to rise to do it all over again.

One of the things young people always ask me about is what is the secret to success. The secret is there is no secret. It's the basics. Blocking and tackling.

(The movie) is the story of my life, but it's not about me. It's about anybody who ever dreamed big and had someone tell them, 'No, you can't do it.' You can.

The people who care the most about the folks in your community are living in the community. They don't live in Washington, D.C.

Will Smith played Chris Gardner better than Chris Gardner ever did.

The hardest thing that I had to do every day as a working single parent was child care, to have to leave my child with people that I did not know and hope everything was OK, that was the most painful part of every day.

I say to people all the time, it is OK to fail. Some of the greatest successes in the history of America started out as failures.

Probably the hardest question I get asked is, 'How do I choose between passion and practicality?' I can't answer that. I had to do both. I was passionate about pursuing a career in financial services. But I was also passionate about feeding my child.

What can we be in life? Few figures in history have answered this question with as much clarity and moral authority as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Remember: If you don't schmooze, you lose. Used wisely, a bit of chitchat helps create a personal connection with your boss and colleagues.

You can blame outside factors or make excuses about why things didn't work out, but that doesn't change anything.

Nine times out of 10, extenuating circumstances aside, I believe that people are where they are by some kind of choice on their part. You need to acknowledge that, 'Hey, I'm here because I steered my horse in this direction.'

I didn't grow up in a household where dinner conversation was, 'How did the market do today?'

Your net worth can fluctuate, but your self-worth should only appreciate.

Baby steps count, too, as long as you're moving forward.

Salespeople are the most important people in any organization. Until a salesperson gets an order, nobody in the company has a job.

I initially moved to San Francisco to become a research associate for one of the top young heart surgeons in the country. Everything that I learned in that position is that skills, talent, and expertise are transferable.

I chose to embrace the spirit of my mother, who, though she had too many of her own dreams denied, deferred, and destroyed, she still instilled in me, her child, that I could have dreams and that I did have a responsibility and the power.

I cut grass, I did yard work, I did roofing, I cleaned basements to take care of my family.

Be bold enough to find the one thing that you are passionate about. It might not be what you were trained to do. But be bold enough to do the one thing. Nobody needs to dig it but you.

I've said that if you're not doing something that you're passionate about, you're compromising yourself every single day.