Quotes from Chris Gardner

My stepfather was fond of letting me know, quote, 'I ain't your... damn daddy.' That was something that was painful, to put it mildly.

Fortunately, our digital age has created some wonderful tools for finding employers and showing your strengths. But when it comes to discovering or keeping a job, nothing beats good old-fashioned face time and up-to-date skills.

The future was uncertain, absolutely, and there were many hurdles, twists, and turns to come, but as long as I kept moving forward, one foot in front of the other, the voices of fear and shame, the messages from those who wanted me to believe that I wasn't good enough, would be stilled.

The world is your oyster. It's up to you to find the pearls.

It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson on the Declaration of Independence and the part about our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And I remember thinking how did he know to put the pursuit part in there? That maybe happiness is something that we can only pursue and maybe we can actually never have it. No matter what. How did he know that?

Walk that walk and go forward all the time. Don't just talk that talk, walk it and go forward. Also, the walk didn't have to be long strides; baby steps counted too. Go forward.

Still a dreamer, yet more of a realist than ever before, I knew this was my time to sail. On the horizon I saw the shining future, as before. The difference now was that I felt the wind at my back. I was ready.

Wealth can also be that attitude of gratitude with which we remind ourselves everyday to count our blessings.

Her stillness defeated his storm.

There was a language specific to all things. The ability to learn another language in one arena, whether it was music, medicine, or finance, could be used to accelerate learning and other arenas, too.

But if you don't take the necessary steps to make them happen, dreams are just mirages that mess with your head!

No one ever laid out the sequence of events that led to my mother being prosecuted and imprisoned for alleged welfare fraud.

Sizing up succinctly his lack of formal education compared with his determination to learn from others, the author writes, "I went to college with every person I ever met.

This is a work of nonfiction. I have rendered the events faithfully and truthfully just as I have recalled them. Some names and descriptions of individuals have been changed in order to respect their privacy. To anyone whose name I did not

If you have a dream and a desire to pursue it with every fiber of your being, but can't move past excuses or circumstances that seem to be standing in your way, there is a life lesson ahead with your name on it. If you are tired of the status quo and are dying to shake up your life, reinvent yourself, and find a pursuit you love doing so much that you can't wait for the sun to come up in the morning, you've come to the right place. If

Then again, what seems like nothing in the eyes of the world, when properly valued and put to use, can be among the greatest riches.

sometimes the only way we can discover our true power is by living through the crisis we feared. As

Every time he came back, apologetic, contrite, he'd start off being real nice. But he was as predictable as rain. No body knew when he'd go off, but at some point everybody knew he would.

Mr. Gardner, why people gotta keep you down when you have your dream?" Again, I was having a long overdue conversation with myself. "Well," I said, "people who can't do something themselves, they're jealous, so they wanna tell you that you can't do it. But you know what? You got a dream, it's yours and you gotta protect it. So, don't let anyone tell you that you can't. If you want something, go get it. Period.

It's okay to fail, it's not okay to quit.

Cualquiera que crea que el dinero lo salva todo, no ha tenido nunca dinero… como yo en aquel tiempo.

no matter where you are, only you have dominion over your mind, your beliefs, and your attitudes. So if you look at your situation and let go of excuses or blame, and you choose to believe that you can alter your position on your own, you'll deprive the system, the man, or the ism controlling you. First

Don't listen to them," I said. "In fact, don't ever let anybody tell you that you can't do something. Not your parents, your teachers. Nobody.

we all have the power of choice in determining who we ultimately become. This