Years ago I met Richard Burton in Port Talbot, my home town, and afterwards he passed in his car with his wife, and I thought, ‚I want to get out and become like him‘. Not because of Wales, because I love Wales, but because I was so limited as a child at school and so bereft and lonely, and I thought becoming an actor would do that.

Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spent the rest of the day putting the pieces together.

The bird is powered by its own life and by its motivation.

Nobody knows me.

No man was ever wise by chance.

We will move forward, we will move upward, and yes, we will move onward.

From the moment I started writing raps, I was always aware of the pressure. I always wanted to live up to how huge Snoop got, how huge Dre got, how huge Pac got. I was always aware.

You might win some, you might lose some. But you go in, you challenge yourself, you become a better man, a better individual, a better fighter.

I’m inspired by people who keep on rolling, no matter their age.

I think when people make a record with a goal in mind – like taking it to the next level or making them seem more mature – that gets in the way of writing great songs.

You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.

Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.

Emotion creates reality, reality demands action.

If people take anything from my music, it should be motivation to know that anything is possible as long as you keep working at it and don’t back down.

I was not raised with wealth or resources or any social standing to speak of.

Everybody born comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. We come from the Creator with creativity. I think that each one of us is born with creativity.

Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.

Ideas are the beginning points of all fortunes.

A man of courage is also full of faith.

One’s only rival is one’s own potentialities. One’s only failure is failing to live up to one’s own possibilities. In this sense, every man can be a king, and must therefore be treated like a king.

If you hear a voice within you say ‚you cannot paint,‘ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.

No crime is so great as daring to excel.

With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.

We represent a hustler. I think we represent inspiration. I think we represent, you know, staying down. I think we represent building yourself up from the bootstraps.

Protect your enthusiasm from the negativity of others.

Defeat doesn’t finish a man, quit does. A man is not finished when he’s defeated. He’s finished when he quits.

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.

Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.

The one excellent thing that can be learned from a lion is that whatever a man intends doing should be done by him with a whole-hearted and strenuous effort.

I always felt an outsider.

What keeps me motivated is love and passion.

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.

What is a fear of living? It’s being preeminently afraid of dying. It is not doing what you came here to do, out of timidity and spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility for yourself – for the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don’t know what you’re here to do, then just do some good.

All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.

When you’re on the road and moving city to city, when someone isn’t there at the end of the night, you feel empty.

Getting out of bed is like the foundation of the discipline, and I think it carries over into everything else.

Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.

I couldn’t have written things like ‚Low‘ and ‚Heroes,‘ those particular albums, if it hadn’t have been for Berlin and the kind of atmosphere I felt there.

Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.

Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music.

The value of beauty and inspiration is very much underrated, no question. But I want to be clear: I’m not trying to be anyone’s savior. I’m just trying to think about the future and not be sad.

I am never satisfied with myself and that is what keeps me going – I have no post-satisfaction.

You have enough people against you… be for yourself.

People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.

From wonder into wonder existence opens.

Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

If you lose a big fight, it will worry you all of your life. It will plague you – until you get your revenge.

Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith.

Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?

I kept writing not because I felt I was so good, but because I felt they were so bad, including Shakespeare, all those. The stilted formalism, like chewing cardboard.

If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it.

It’s every girl’s dream to be a cover girl!

We’re going to have to work. We’re going to have to play well. Nothing will be given to us.

Ambition never is in a greater hurry than I; it merely keeps pace with circumstances and with my general way of thinking.

Desire is the very essence of man.

God wants to use you to make other people happy! And the happier you make others, the happier you will be because you reap what you sow.

Life is a journey. When we stop, things don’t go right.

It seems that when you have cancer you are a brave battler against the disease, but when you have Alzheimer’s you are an old fart. That’s how people see you. It makes you feel quite alone.

If you want to achieve something, you build the basis for it.

Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.

I never worry about action, but only inaction.