Genius, when young, is divine.

Practically everybody in New York has half a mind to write a book, and does.

I’m a writer, and I will write what I want to write.

I don’t really believe in the type of pressure that people are wanting to put on the type of music that I make.

Frankly, I mean, sometimes the interpretations I’ve seen on some of the songs that I’ve written are a lot more interesting than the input that I put in.

I love those who yearn for the impossible.

I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.

Whatever is on the page is what I’m married to. I’m very prepared. I’m a thespian. I don’t like to improv. I don’t like to go off course ‚cause I think that’s where stuff happens. When you stick to the material ‚cause it’s written so well, that’s where the magic happens.

All good art is an indiscretion.

I’m still in love with what I do, with the idea of making things up, so hours when I write always feel like very blessed hours to me.

I don’t know that much about who directs what movies, but I’m definitely inspired by the look of old movies; I find them to be really beautiful.

Whenever death may surprise us, let it be welcome if our battle cry has reached even one receptive ear and another hand reaches out to take up our arms.

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

Talent and effort, combined with our various backgrounds and life experiences, has always been the lifeblood of our singular American genius.

Let us have no machine-made ornament at all; it is all bad and worthless and ugly.

When I’m in the studio, I’m looking for creativity I haven’t matched yet, a feeling I haven’t felt. It’s a high.

Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order.

I remember being in Japan when Destiny’s Child put out ‚Independent Women,‘ and women there were saying how proud they were to have their own jobs, their own independent thinking, their own goals. It made me feel so good, and I realized that one of my responsibilities was to inspire women in a deeper way.

Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.

When you’re coming up with new material, it’s not always gonna be good. The only way to learn is for it not to get a laugh, so you can adjust it and come back the next day to see if it’s working right. Next time, you might get a different laugh. You’re constantly rebuilding.

Because of your smile, you make life more beautiful.

As a kid, I used to see how Sachin Tendulkar used to win matches under pressure for India in Sharjah or other places. So I was always keen to repeat the same in similar situations. I don’t take pressure on myself when I am in the middle. I love pressure, and I always believe that pressure makes you more focused.

Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young.

‚The Lion‘ all began with a picture of a faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself, ‚Let’s try to make a story about it.‘

The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.

Millions of people were inspired by the Apollo Program. I was five years old when I watched Apollo 11 unfold on television, and without any doubt it was a big contributor to my passions for science, engineering, and exploration.

We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

The Make in India campaign has taken off and is backed with skill development. It is going to open new vistas for employment for the youth.

Yet, it is true, poetry is delicious; the best prose is that which is most full of poetry.

I try to really capitalize off of what other rappers really can’t do. There are opportunities that rappers I love simply can’t get, because… you know… I don’t have the tattoos; I have a different image.

I think people inspire me the most. If I meet a person who is incredibly complex, and all of a sudden, I start thinking in rhymes, that person could be a muse.

Duty, Honor, Country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be.

There ought to be an artistic depot where the artist need only hand in his artwork in order to receive what he asks for. As things are, one must be half a business man, and how can one understand – good heavens! – that’s what I really call troublesome.

There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It’s always been my way of expressing what, for me, is inexpressible by any other means.

One of the things you’re doing when you make art, apart from entertaining yourself and other people, is trying to see what ways of working feel good, what feels right.

Almost everything that is great has been done by youth.

Doing graphic novels is cool! It’s fun! You get to write something, and then see it visually page by page, panel by panel, working with the artist, you get to see it fleshed out.

I believe that each of us comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory.

I design things to help people to hopefully express their personality.

See, when you drive home today, you’ve got a big windshield on the front of your car. And you’ve got a little bitty rearview mirror. And the reason the windshield is so large and the rearview mirror is so small is because what’s happened in your past is not near as important as what’s in your future.

To be honest, I never really considered myself to be too much of an actress. So, whenever I get the chance to do music, I’m always, like, just in it. It’s like, ‚Oh my God, I finally get to do this. I’m so happy.‘

A true artist is expected to be all that is noble-minded, and this is not altogether a mistake; on the other hand, however, in what a mean way are critics allowed to pounce upon us.

Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.

A fortunate author can write maybe twelve novels in his lifetime.

True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.

I always had music growing up, but music was also like a journal. It was like my personal diary or personal journal. A lot of the things I couldn’t express to an individual, I would express them in my music.

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.

The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication.

My view is that at a younger age your optimism is more and you have more imagination etc. You have less bias.

If you dream the proper dreams, and share the myths with people, they will want to grow up to be like you.

Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.

An idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at all.

I think you can give a pure artistic product if you understand how to build your own industry.

I always knew that St. Jude was an amazing organization but meeting the kids and seeing how the hospital works first hand was truly beautiful. It doesn’t feel like a regular hospital all dreary and sad. It’s a colorful, beautiful, comfortable, fun place to live and the energy is wonderful.

My heroes are the ones who survived doing it wrong, who made mistakes, but recovered from them.

My mother says I was writing before I was crawling. I wrote in the dirt with a twig.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.

I think, generally, I just cannot really envision life without writing and producing records and singing.