Will

by Will Smith

“There is no wall. There are only bricks. Your job is to lay this brick perfectly. Then move on to the next brick. Then lay that brick perfectly. Then the next one. Don’t be worrying about no wall. Your only concern is one brick.”

Daddio figured out that once he’d fixed a heater, he’d have to “test” it for a couple days, to make sure it was working. At any given time, he’d have ten or twelve kerosene heaters “being tested for the quality of his work.” That many heaters will easily warm a West Philly row home, even in the coldest of winters. So Daddio canceled our gas service, kept his family warm and toasty for the winter, and got paid for it.

“Ninety-nine percent is the same as zero” was one of his favorite sayings.

“Never argue with a fool, because from a distance, people can’t tell who’s who.”

The bigger the fantasy you live, the more painful the inevitable collision with reality. If you cultivate the fantasy that your marriage will be forever joyful and effortless, then reality is going to pay you back in equal proportion to your delusion.

as we grow up, we start to let go of our fantasy life simply because we discover that living in the real world is more valuable to us than clinging to our fantasies.

to either “know what you’re talking about or be quiet.”

These three ideas—discipline, education, and love—would fight for my attention throughout the rest of my life.

To me, love was a performance, so if you weren’t clapping, I was failing. To succeed in love, the ones you care for must constantly applaud. Spoiler alert: This is not a way to have healthy relationships.

DJ—short for “disc jockey”—

songs in both funk and disco always featured instrumental sections somewhere in the middle. The song would be jammin’ along, and then it would begin to rise, until it reached a soaring crescendo with every instrument at full blast, and then BOOM! Nothing but the drummer. This became known as the “break.” Break beats were designed to have a little extra spladow to ’em. The break was the time for performers like James Brown to show off their dance moves, but as it turned out, the breaks became the hottest part of the song and always set the party on fire.

DJs now had two turntables and twice as many records. The demands of the craft consumed more and more of their attention, preventing them from being able to interact with the crowd as much as they used to. So they started bringing their brother or one of their friends along to be on the mic to engage with the crowd. These “masters of ceremonies” would talk to the audience, hype ’em up, brag about the DJ, and generally entertain the audience: “Ladies, lemme hear ya!” “Who got a hundred dollars in they pocket?” “Where Brooklyn at?”

The equation was now complete: DJing + MCing = Hip-Hop.

I always loved that Caz was on a basketball court when he makes the call to Yvette. So in the theme song for The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, I put my character on a basketball court, too—a quiet homage to the legend.

As a teenager, outside of physical injury, you cannot feel worse than having your mother catch you and your girlfriend doggy-style on her kitchen floor.

“Look at the five people you spend the most time with because that’s who you are.”

When people give you advice, they’re basing it on what they would do, what they can perceive, on what they think you can do. But the bottom line is, while yes, it is true that we are all subject to a series of universal laws, patterns, tides, and currents—all of which are somewhat predictable—you are the first time you’ve ever happened. YOU and NOW are a unique occurrence, of which you are the most reliable measure of all the possibilities.

Life is like school, with one key difference—in school you get the lesson, and then you take the test. But in life, you get the test, and it’s your job to take the lesson.

“Boy, why you need three cars?” he said. “You only got one ass.”

Choosing the city you live in is as important as choosing your life partner.

The thing about money, sex, and success is that when you don’t have them, you can justify your misery—shit, if I had money, sex, and success, I’d feel great! However misguided that may be, it psychologically permeates as hope. But once you are rich, famous, successful—and you’re still insecure and unhappy—the terrifying thought begins to lurk: Maybe the problem is me.

I didn’t think anything of it. In Philly, we always clown dudes like this. “Being Hollywood” is like the worst thing you can be—it’s the definition of insincerity. Moments like that happen all the time in LA. I moved on and forgot about it.

His “want”/ dramatic quest is the first pillar of behavior. What someone desires is a portal into the essential truth of their personality.

What’s true about movies is also true about life: You tell me what you want, and I’ll tell you who you are.

I wanted to thrive where my competition would fold. I wanted my wife to know that I was invincible. Women (and Europeans) always shake their heads or describe this trait negatively. But on a primal level, it’s really hard to not respect a warrior.

In my experience, most people get divorced too soon, before they’ve extracted the lessons that will keep them from doing the exact same things in their next relationships.

I was working seventy to eighty hours a week; holidays, weekends, even “vacations” became a time to advance. I noticed that most people came back from Christmas vacation heavier and out of shape. So, the holidays, for me, became an opportunity to extend my lead. I made it a point to come back every New Year in better shape than I left the last. I would work out and sometimes even abstain from Christmas dinner as act of personal discipline. Darrell loved and praised my austerity. “If you not eatin’, then I’m not eatin’,” he would say. I would spend the days studying and writing, reading a book, or rewriting a script, touching in and out of whatever holiday festivities others were enjoying.

So, when we open sentences with “The fact of the matter is,” the other person is thinking, I just talked for ten minutes—I told you what my fact of the matter is. Or if we say, “Look, here’s the reality,” the other person is thinking, Asshole—I just told the reality. Other classic offenders include “Truth be told …,” and “At the end of the day …,” and “I get it—but in all likelihood …,” and “I get it—but here’s the thing …,” and “Can I be honest?” Use any of those, and you’re dead in the water. People take it as a total negation of what they just said and a complete disregard of their feelings.

The painful awakening was to the reality that we were two separate people on two independent, individual journeys. We had simply chosen to walk this portion together.

As long as you are twisting and contorting and selling yourself out for the affection of others, you will always be untrustworthy.”

dying person often needs “permission to die.” The book posits that sometimes a dying person will fight and struggle to stay alive if they don’t have the sense that you are going to be OK without them. This can create horrific and painful final days. In order for our loved one to let go and die peacefully, they need to be explicitly reassured that we’re going to be OK after they are gone,