Ideas have a short shelf life. You must act on them before the expiration date.

When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at top speed.

One of the wonderful things about Oprah: She teaches you to keep on stepping.

Whenever you give up something, you must replace it with something.

Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it.

If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.

I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‚Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.‘

There is one thing that gets you out of bed in the morning, and that is discipline. Because your dreams and your goals are not there waking up for you in the morning.

But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

Quitting is the easiest thing to do.

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.

When you know what you want, and want it bad enough, you will find a way to get it.

Must is a hard nut to crack, but it has a sweet kernel.

I do not live on false promises. I cannot afford to live on bad advice.

Do right. Do your best. Treat others as you want to be treated.

If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.

The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.

The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.

Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.

You can write a song about being in love with someone, but you don’t have to be in love with anyone.

Ambition has become a dirty word, and I believe it is a great evolutionary force for the positive. If people fail or go astray in their ambition I can live with it but not with people lowering their expectations, wasting time, slacking off and glorifying failure and stupidity.

Years ago I met Richard Burton in Port Talbot, my home town, and afterwards he passed in his car with his wife, and I thought, ‚I want to get out and become like him‘. Not because of Wales, because I love Wales, but because I was so limited as a child at school and so bereft and lonely, and I thought becoming an actor would do that.

I wonder how many times people give up just before a breakthrough – when they are on the very brink of success.

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.

I’m a painter in sound.

My kind of composing is more like the work of a gardener. The gardener takes his seeds and scatters them, knowing what he is planting but not quite what will grow where and when – and he won’t necessarily be able to reproduce it again afterwards either.

Nothing is more fearful than imagination without taste.

If we drive down the cost of transportation in space, we can do great things.

I’ve been asking myself: ‚Why put together these things – CDs, albums?‘ The answer I came up with is, well, sometimes it’s artistically viable. It’s not just a random collection of songs. Sometimes the songs have a common thread, even if it’s not obvious or even conscious on the artists‘ part.

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.

To some extent I happily don’t know what I’m doing. I feel that it’s an artist’s responsibility to trust that.

The soul never thinks without a picture.

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.

Don’t worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.

Every once in a while, I get mad. ‚The Lorax‘ came out of my being angry. The ecology books I’d read were dull… In ‚The Lorax,‘ I was out to attack what I think are evil things and let the chips fall where they might.

It is better to risk starving to death then surrender. If you give up on your dreams, what’s left?

Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.

Energy begets energy.

If you’re bored with life – you don’t get up every morning with a burning desire to do things – you don’t have enough goals.

Part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians, poets, and artists, and zoologists, and historians. They also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world. But if it hadn’t been computer science, these people would have been doing amazing things in other fields.

I think that at the start of a game, you’re always playing to win, and then maybe if you’re ahead late in the game, you start playing not to lose. The true competitors, though, are the ones who always play to win.

I always believe that there should come a time when your energy, speed, stamina should combine well with your brains.

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

People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.

The reason we want to go on and on is because we live in an impoverished present.

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.

Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.

One must marry one’s feelings to one’s beliefs and ideas. That is probably the only way to achieve a measure of harmony in one’s life.

One of my big fears is people saying my songs are all starting to sound the same.

Failed plans should not be interpreted as a failed vision. Visions don’t change, they are only refined. Plans rarely stay the same, and are scrapped or adjusted as needed. Be stubborn about the vision, but flexible with your plan.

I’m not very ambitious at all.

Necessity… the mother of invention.

Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.

One science only will one genius fit; so vast is art, so narrow human wit.

A boy carries out suggestions more wholeheartedly when he understands their aim.

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.

Dignify and glorify common labor. It is at the bottom of life that we must begin, not at the top.

Do all you can to make your dreams come true.

We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society.

It’s lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believed in myself.