I never wanted to be the next Bruce Lee. I just wanted to be the first Jackie Chan.

I’ve never had writer’s block.

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.

In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.

When you look at the light bulb above you, you remember Thomas Alva Edison. When the telephone bell rings, you remember Alexander Graham Bell. Marie Curie was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize. When you see the blue sky, you think of Sir C.V. Raman.

I subscribe to the myth that an artist’s creativity comes from torment. Once that’s fixed, what do you draw on?

If a man knows not what harbor he seeks, any wind is the right wind.

My mother was and will always remain my greatest hero.

Don’t gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver or gold.

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

To love one that is great, is almost to be great one’s self.

Who’s my hero? That’s a great question… Well, I think my dad is my hero, because he’s someone I look up to every day.

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

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.

Passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all things alive and significant.

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

To write it, it took three months; to conceive it three minutes; to collect the data in it all my life.

Imagine for yourself a character, a model personality, whose example you determine to follow, in private as well as in public.

Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.

I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.

Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.

My career as Nipsey Hussle is based on my life as Ermias Asghedom.

My dad used to have an expression – ‚It is the lucky person who gets up in the morning, puts both feet on the floor, knows what they are about to do, and thinks it still matters.‘

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.

I booked my first studio at like 12 or 13. Somewhere in that season of my life, singing along with the radio became me wanting to be on radio, you know. And writing Langston Hughes replica poems became me wanting to write like Stevie Wonder.

The best thing I did was to choose the right heroes.

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.

We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society.

While we may lose heart, we never have to lose hope.

People ask me where I got my singing style. I didn’t copy my style from anybody.

You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world’s problems at once but don’t ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.

If you only believe that you’re an artist when you have a big advance in your pocket and a single coming out, I would say that’s quite soulless. You have to have a sense of your own greatness and your own ability from a very deep place inside you. I am the one with the litmus test in my hands of what people need to hear next.

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.

In cricket, my superhero is Sachin Tendulkar. He has always been my hero and will continue to remain so. Apart from him and outside cricket, my mother has remained my inspiration. Whatever difficult time I had faced, she was always there for me. She has given me all the strength. She maintained her composure and supported me in tough times.

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

Thought is the wind and knowledge the sail.

To all the musicians who are making reggaeton, let’s put some more effort into it and bring something new to the people!

The truth of it is that every singer out there with songs on the radio is raising the next generation, so make your words count.

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.

God’s Spirit moves through us and the world at a pace that can never be constricted by any one religious paradigm. I love that.

I respect Drake not only as a creative person but as a business mind as well. I think Drake’s important.

If they can make penicillin out of mouldy bread, they can sure make something out of you.

With a tree, all the growth takes place at the growing tips. Humanity is exactly the same. All the growth takes place in the growing tip: among that one percent of the population. It’s made up of pioneers, the beginners. That’s where the action is.

I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.

Why do I like to write short stories? Well, I certainly didn’t intend to. I was going to write a novel. And still! I still come up with ideas for novels. And I even start novels. But something happens to them. They break up. I look at what I really want to do with the material, and it never turns out to be a novel.

Actions are the seed of fate deeds grow into destiny.

The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.

You should treat a muse like a fairy.

Sometimes people make it seem like you have to have certain prerequisites or a crazy life story in order to be successful in this world. But the truth is you really don’t.

I owe everything to Nirvana. But I can’t let that overshadow the future. For the first few years, I didn’t even want to talk about Nirvana. Partly because it was just painful to talk about losing Kurt but also because I wanted the Foo Fighters to mean something.

When I heard ‚Jesus, Take the Wheel,‘ I was like, OK. Some people look at it as a song written for an American Idol, Carrie Underwood, who is wonderful. But when you’re a songwriter listening to a song, you hear something else. I heard that song, and wow.

Every man I meet is in some way my superior.

What is the use of writing plays, what is the use of writing anything, if there is not a will which finally moulds chaos itself into a race of gods.

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

Changes and progress very rarely are gifts from above. They come out of struggles from below.

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.

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.

Before I do anything, I think, well what hasn’t been seen. Sometimes, that turns out to be something ghastly and not fit for society. And sometimes that inspiration becomes something that’s really worthwhile.