I think my biggest musical hero growing up was probably Ian MacKaye. He set a great example for all of us local musicians. Still, to this day, I see him as the best example of a right-on musician.

Kitty Wells was the first and only Queen of Country Music, no matter what they call the rest of us. She was a great inspiration to me as well as every other female singer in the country music business. In addition to being a wonderful asset to country music, she was a wonderful woman.

The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.

I am an example of what is possible when girls from the very beginning of their lives are loved and nurtured by people around them. I was surrounded by extraordinary women in my life who taught me about quiet strength and dignity.

Those who create are rare; those who cannot are numerous. Therefore, the latter are stronger.

You should treat a muse like a fairy.

I’ve done many ads because that’s my new career. It’s an inspiring extension for my mind.

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.

I’m just writing, writing, writing. I keep these tablets on me until I’m inspired to go back in and make the music. I never take a break from my pen, because I pride myself on that.

As much as I love the Western genre, I figured if I kept doing those, I’d eventually run out of steam on that, and that would’ve been the end of it.

Wine gives a man nothing… it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.

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.

Love is the attempt to form a friendship inspired by beauty.

Hope is not a resting place but a starting point – a cactus, not a cushion.

Thought is the wind and knowledge the sail.

Get up, stand up, Stand up for your rights. Get up, stand up, Don’t give up the fight.

Nor shall derision prove powerful against those who listen to humanity or those who follow in the footsteps of divinity, for they shall live forever. Forever.

For me to talk with Obama and the conversation I had with him, I was letting him know that me and my fans have a special connection, and it’s love, and I believe that love is the answer.

Live out of your imagination, not your history.

I’d like to think you don’t stop being creative once you get happy.

I love those who do not know how to live for today.

I’m not a big believer in trying to jam stuff down somebody’s throat: ‚You’re going to do it my way.‘ I’d rather show by example and live my life and have people say, ‚You know what, I want to live like Joel has. He’s got peace and joy, and he seems content.‘

When I’m writing a record, I kind of don’t listen to much music. Just because I want to be inspired solely on the emotion; just based on how it feels.

I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.

In every walk of life, you must have leaders. An education in the spiritual world, in the labor field, in the agricultural field, we must have leaders.

If you are a leader, you should never forget that everyone needs encouragement. And everyone who receives it – young or old, successful or less-than-successful, unknown or famous – is changed by it.

The Paralympic Games is about transforming our perception of the world.

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.

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

Art raises its head where creeds relax.

Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

A lot of the stuff I do in terms of PR, I learned it from Muhammad Ali.

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 here has the sense that right now is one of those moments when we are influencing the future.

He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.

Do not let Sunday be taken from you. If your soul has no Sunday, it becomes an orphan.

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

Let us be shy no longer. Let us go to our strength. Let us offer hope. Let us tell the world that a new age is not only possible but probable.

The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.

I want to thank The Beatles for almost single-handedly getting me out of writer’s block.

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

Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.

Words without actions are the assassins of idealism.

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

If you are lucky enough to find something that you love, and you have a shot at being good at it, don’t stop, don’t put it down.

Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.

While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future.

Everything in the world exists to end up in a book.

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.

I love the name of honor, more than I fear death.

Man becomes his most creative during war.

It’d be stupid for me to sit here and say that there aren’t kids who look up to me, but my responsibility is not to them. I’m not a baby sitter.

Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

It’s good to wander into the studio and walk out with something that’s better than you’d imagined it to be. If everything was as you imagined it to be, it just wouldn’t be as much fun.

I go to cancer wards, and I tell them guys, ‚I’ve beaten it. You can, too.‘

On Sundays when I speak, I hopefully give somebody something that they can use the next day at work or at home.

The eagle has no fear of adversity. We need to be like the eagle and have a fearless spirit of a conqueror!

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

I’m really bad with answering questions. Usually, I don’t even answer them. I try to find inspiration inside of the question. I think, and I jump from one beam of inspiration or energy to the next, as opposed to explaining the energy.

I want to make something that is breathtaking. Of course, you can’t make something that is always breathtaking, or you would never be able to breathe. You would collapse.

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.