"I could talk big for only so long. Eventually I had to prove -- to the real estate community, to the press, to my father -- that I could deliver the goods." - Donald J. Trump

"I worried about the future of New York City too, but I can't say it kept me up at nights. I'm basically an optimist, and frankly, I saw the city's trouble as a great opportunity for me. Because I grew up in Queens, I believed, perhaps to an irrational degree, that Manhattan was always going to be the best place to live -- the center of the world. Whatever troubles the city might be having in the short term, there was no doubt in my mind that things had to turn around ultimately. What other city was going to take New York's place?" - Donald J. Trump

"In the end, of course, it never pays to be in too much of a hurry." - Donald J. Trump

PBD on Trump

"Perhaps the most important thing I learned at Wharton was not to be overly impressed by academic credentials. It didn't take me long to realize that there was nothing particularly awesome or exceptional about my classmates, and I could compete with them just fine." - Donald J. Trump

Fred Trump: #Competence #Efficiency

Mary Trump: #Splendor #Magnificence

"Life is very fragile, and success doesn’t change that. If anything, success makes it more fragile. Anything can change, without warning, and that’s why I try not to take any of what’s happened too seriously. Money was never a big motivation for me, except as a way to keep score. The real excitement is playing the game." - Donald J. Trump

"I believe in spending what you have to. But I also believe in not spending more than you should. [...] the day I can’t pick up the telephone and make a twenty-five-cent call to save $10,000 is the day I’m going to close up shop." - Donald J. Trump

"But that experience also taught me something. Until then, I’d never understood how Jimmy Carter became president. The answer is that as poorly qualified as he was for the job, Jimmy Carter had the nerve, the guts, the balls, to ask for something extraordinary. That ability above all helped him get elected president. But then, of course, the American people caught on pretty quickly that Carter couldn’t do the job, and he lost in a landslide when he ran for reelection.

Ronald Reagan is another example. He is so smooth and so effective a performer that he completely won over the American people. Only now, nearly seven years later, are people beginning to question whether there’s anything beneath that smile."

- Donald J. Trump

"Much as it pays to emphasize the positive, there are times when the only choice is confrontation." - Donald J. Trump

"You can have the most wonderful product in the world, but if people don't know about it, it's not going to be worth much. [...} You need to generate interest, and you need to create excitement." - Donald J. Trump