My view is there’s no bad time to innovate.

If a poet is anybody, he is somebody to whom things made matter very little – somebody who is obsessed by Making.

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.

I do some kind of work, whether writing or painting or recording, on a daily basis. And it’s so essential that when I’m involved in the actual process, my so-called ‚real life‘ becomes almost incidental, which becomes worrying.

Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex, you thought of nothing else if you didn’t have it and thought of other things if you did.

Research is creating new knowledge.

The only way you gain mental toughness is to do things you’re not happy doing. If you continue doing things that you’re satisfied and make you happy, you’re not getting stronger. You’re staying where you’re at. Either you’re getting better, or you’re getting worse. You’re not staying the same.

The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.

The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet.

Success is not a stop sign.

My philosophy is: It’s none of my business what people say of me and think of me.

In the struggle between yourself and the world second the world.

A record deal doesn’t make you an artist; you make yourself an artist.

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.

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

Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.

In many ways, I’ve been writing personal stories all my life.

Don’t be too harsh to these poems until they’re typed. I always think typescript lends some sort of certainty: at least, if the things are bad then, they appear to be bad with conviction.

Inspiration is hard to come by. You have to take it where you find it.

Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.

I really do encourage other manufacturers to bring electric cars to market. It’s a good thing, and they need to bring it to market and keep iterating and improving and make better and better electric cars, and that’s what going to result in humanity achieving a sustainable transport future. I wish it was growing faster than it is.

Only the insecure strive for security.

A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.

I think it all comes back to being very selfish as an artist. I mean, I really do just write and record what interests me and I do approach the stage shows in much the same way.

I just have a relationship with my imagination. It’s like my friend, almost.

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.

I stay out of politics because if I begin thinking too much about politics, I’ll probably… drop writing children’s books and become a political cartoonist again.

Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relation.

It’s not ‚can‘; it’s ‚will.‘ You have to will things into fruition.

The devil is a peace stealer, and he works hard to set us up to get upset. But we can learn how to change our approach so we don’t live upset all of the time. And Jesus gives us the best example to follow.

Hope is favorable and confident expectation; it’s an expectant attitude that something good is going to happen and things will work out, no matter what situation we’re facing.

Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state.

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.

Writing has always had that tactile quality for me. It’s a physical experience.

Microsoft is not about greed. It’s about innovation and fairness.

Everybody thinks that when new technologies come along that they’re transparent and you can just do your job well on it. But technologies always import a whole new set of values with them.

I think that when we know that we actually do live in uncertainty, then we ought to admit it; it is of great value to realize that we do not know the answers to different questions. This attitude of mind – this attitude of uncertainty – is vital to the scientist, and it is this attitude of mind which the student must first acquire.

There is a lot of pressure put on me, but I don’t put a lot of pressure on myself. I feel if I play my game, it will take care of itself.

By the mid-’60s, recorded music was much more like painting than it was like traditional music. When you went into the studio, you could put a sound down, then you could squeeze it around, spread it all around the canvas.

Arrange whatever pieces come your way.

I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the person grow to look like his portrait.

The artist forges himself to the others, midway between the beauty he cannot do without and the community he cannot tear himself away from. That is why true artists scorn nothing: they are obliged to understand rather than to judge.

He not busy being born is busy dying.

Sometimes I’ve called writing a disease. If so, I’m glad that it caught me.

I used to like to set different film clips to classical music, not even my own songs, but make little movies.

I don’t think that you can invent on behalf of customers unless you’re willing to think long-term, because a lot of invention doesn’t work. If you’re going to invent, it means you’re going to experiment, and if you’re going to experiment, you’re going to fail, and if you’re going to fail, you have to think long term.

What we want to be is something completely new. There is no physical analog for what Amazon.com is becoming.

Most poets are young simply because they have not been caught up. Show me an old poet, and I’ll show you, more often than not, either a madman or a master… it’s when you begin to lie to yourself in a poem in order simply to make a poem that you fail. That is why I do not rework poems.

I have fun with ideas; I play with them.

I think I hate cynicism more than anything else. It’s the curse of our age, and I want to avoid it at all costs.

There is no great genius without some touch of madness.

If you want to make computers that really work, create a design team composed only of healthy, active women with lots else to do in their lives, and give them carte blanche.

What’s real freedom? Real freedom is being able to not have my way and still be just as happy as if I did.

There’s an inherent danger in letting people think that they have perfected something. When they believe they’ve ‚nailed it,‘ most people tend to sit back and rest on their laurels while countless others will be labouring furiously to better their work!

O, had I but followed the arts!

We have art in order not to die of the truth.

From a young age, I learned to focus on the things I was good at and delegate to others what I was not good at. That’s how Virgin is run. Fantastic people throughout the Virgin Group run our businesses, allowing me to think creatively and strategically.

Like anything else that happens on its own, the act of writing is beyond currency. Money is great stuff to have, but when it comes to the act of creation, the best thing is not to think of money too much. It constipates the whole process.

We will explore the mysteries of science and harness the power of technology and innovation. We will realise the opportunities of the digital world. Our youth will learn more from – and with – each other.

Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.

Those who believe that they are exclusively in the right are generally those who achieve something.