People have marveled at the fact that I didn't start McDonalds until I was fifty-two years old and then I became a success overnight. But I was just like a lot of show business personalities who work away quietly at their craft for years, and then, suddenly, they get the right break and make it big. I was an overnight success all right, but thirty years is a long, long night.

A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with - a man is what he makes of himself.

It is only by being bold that you get anywhere. If you are a risk-taker, then the art is to protect the downside.

Dress shabbily and they remember the dress; dress impeccably and they remember the woman.

There is no royal flower-strewn path to success. And if there is, I have not found it, for if I have accomplished anything in life, it is because I have been willing to work hard.

If not excellence, what? If not excellence now, when?