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.

All achievements, all earned riches, have their beginning in an idea.

The true artist is not proud: he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly how far he is from the goal, and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun.

A toddling little girl is a centre of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other.

Growing up, I decided, a long time ago, I wouldn’t accept any manmade differences between human beings, differences made at somebody else’s insistence or someone else’s whim or convenience.

Cast away your sloth, your lethargy, your coldness, or whatever interferes with your chaste and pure love for Christ, your soul’s husband. Make Him the source, the center, and the circumference of all your soul’s range of delight.

I need drama in my life to keep making music.

The spirit is there in every boy; it has to be discovered and brought to light.

Sports are basically our way of feeling sorry for ourselves. Most men can’t become athletes. We’re watching guys who actually made it. We see them dunking and making touchdowns. Then we think about ourselves when we were younger.

There have to be reasons that you get up in the morning and you want to live. Why do you want to live? What’s the point? What inspires you? What do you love about the future? If the future does not include being out there among the stars and being a multi-planet species, I find that incredibly depressing.

First and last, what is demanded of genius is love of truth.

There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.

If you ask people what they’ve always wanted to do, most people haven’t done it. That breaks my heart.

Love is the answer, and you know that for sure; Love is a flower, you’ve got to let it grow.

My life is my message.

The masculine spirit is under assault. It’s obvious.

The time is long overdue to stop looking for progress through racial or ethnic leaders. Such leaders have too many incentives to promote polarizing attitudes and actions that are counterproductive for minorities and disastrous for the country.

We have a tendency to condemn people who are different from us, to define their sins as paramount and our own sinfulness as being insignificant.

It’s always interesting about God because it’s like all of the religions in the world say that they pray to the same God, and yet they ask that same one God to divide itself up and agree with this one and fight against that one.

The most miraculous process is watching a song go from a tiny idea in the middle of the night to something that 55,000 people are singing back to you.

I find a lot of inspiration through visuals. When I was 12, I saw Aurora’s ‚Runaway‘ music video. Something inside me clicked, like, ‚That is what I want to do, no matter whether it goes anywhere or not.‘

Nothing is pleasant that is not spiced with variety.

Eating words has never given me indigestion.

Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes.

I hate the idea of genres.

We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

Imagination decides everything.

Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.

I’m honored that everybody’s inspired off my inspiration.

When you’re traveling constantly, every day you become inspired, and it shows in my work, sonically, lyrically, visually. Conversations with women with different accents and stories told in those accents. I like to create characters based on different people I’ve met, and relationships. I like to tell stories loosely based on real-life events.

Just try new things. Don’t be afraid. Step out of your comfort zones and soar, all right?

Creating whole departments of ethnic, gender, and other ‚studies‘ was part of the price of academic peace. All too often, these ‚studies‘ are about propaganda rather than serious education.

You have your ideology and I have mine.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Pennies do not come from heaven. They have to be earned here on earth.

Big results require big ambitions.

And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see – or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read.

Many badly needed goals, like fusion and cancer cure, would be achieved much sooner if we invested more.

If you want to shine like a sun, first burn like a sun.

I want to be an Asian Robert De Niro.

This is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.

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.

Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.

And you find as a writer there are certain spots on the planet where you write better than others, and I believe in that. And New Orleans is one of them.

Steven Spielberg was my childhood hero.

Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

If you don’t know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.

Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.

Having listened to great songwriters like James Taylor and Carole King, I felt there was nothing new that was coming out that really represented me and the way I felt. So I started writing my own stuff.

For me, writing a novel is like having a dream. Writing a novel lets me intentionally dream while I’m still awake. I can continue yesterday’s dream today, something you can’t normally do in everyday life.

And I saw the sax line-up that he had behind him and I thought, I’m going to learn the saxophone. When I grow up, I’m going to play in his band. So I sort of persuaded my dad to get me a kind of a plastic saxophone on the hire purchase plan.

Unless and until you inspire the people, you will not get results. Imposition will never give you the results. Inspiration will always give you the results.

People with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could ever imagine.

Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.

There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools and she was bused to school every day. That little girl was me.

Whenever I write a novel, music just sort of naturally slips in (much like cats do, I suppose).

Strong emotions such as passion and bliss are indications that you’re connected to Spirit, or ‚inspired,‘ if you will. When you’re inspired, you activate dormant forces, and the abundance you seek in any form comes streaming into your life.

You can draw inspiration from anything. If you’re a good storyteller, you can take a dirty look somebody gives you, or if a guy you used to have flirtations with starts dating a new girl, or somebody you’re casually talking to says something that makes you so mad – you can create an entire scenario around that.

Everyone does things differently on offense. Everyone’s goal is to score points.

There are as many opinions as there are experts.

Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.