Gordon B. Hinckley Quotes

I was given talent, and if you are given it, it is your obligation to use it.

I'm John the Fourth, so I think there's a lot of things in life that have been truly handed to me by the hard work and the pain of others.

However great may be the work for which we are responsible, we will always do well if we pause to spend time in sacred praise.

When you get as lucky as I got, you have to work as hard as possible to earn that luck.

You have to wait for a big star to come in and generate interest on a project, and now that has become me, which is an amazing blessing.

Just because my dad is Clint Eastwood doesn't mean I don't have to work for a living.

I came to the United States in the early '80s and was welcomed with open arms and given the opportunity to pursue my dreams. God has been very kind to us. My family and I are fortunate enough to be successful and we feel a tremendous responsibility and obligation to give back to our great country.

Your talent is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God.

I have been very fortunate, so much is expected of me.

One curious thing about growing up is that you don't only move forward in time; you move backwards as well, as pieces of your parents' and grandparents' lives come to you.

The ability to share the gospel isn't a 'gift' that has been given to only a few Latter-day Saints and denied to the rest.

To turn our hearts to our fathers is to search out the names of our deceased ancestors and to perform the saving ordinances in the temple for them. This will forge a continuous chain between us and our forefathers eventually all the way back to Father Adam and Mother Eve.

One of the greatest titles in the world is parent, and one of the biggest blessings in the world is to have parents to call mom and dad.

It's a fantastic responsibility and a wonderful moment.

It's a very weird thing. When you see your house naked, you feel very protective of it and of the people who lived here before.

I take my work seriously but I can't take myself too seriously. I'm in such a crazy privileged position.

I think that anyone who denies their heritage doesn't deserve their destiny. My grandmother was a maid. She put nine children - eight of them - through college; I did not finish college.

I've been blessed with talents to play this game and been put on a stage to impact a lot of people. I don't want to take that for granted.

And you don't have to be a preacher to carry on. That's why I've gone into the theater, with my mother's blessings, and someday I may write, produce and act in my own story of daddy's life. There are so many sides to his story. I hope that someday I could get that opportunity.

You have to take the good with the bad and if you have to play over Christmas you have to. We have a good life and playing football over Christmas is not the worst thing in the world.

The idea that you're made up of the people that come before you and you somehow have some kind of conscious dialog with your genetics - I think it's really deep and interesting stuff.

What you have to do is be grateful for the chances you get. I've always been very humble and never take it for granted, ever. I do the best I can possibly do.

My grandma passed in '78, and that's the year I started recording. It's also the year that my dad retired from his career. So it's funny how torches get passed on, and you feel a responsibility to be connected to the music that they did and try to carry it on in your own way.

Possessions are not God's blessing and goodness, but the opportunities of service which he entrusts to us.

I stuck with my education, you know, I really did that for my grandma. It meant a lot to her that I finished school and in the grand scheme of things it was her who had saved and helped provide for me this opportunity to go to school.