Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning.

I push myself in a lot of aspects when I write a song. I write a piece and where most people would stop and say, ‚Oh, that’s the hook right there,‘ I’ll move that to the first four bars of the verse and do a new hook.

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.

Software constraints are only confining if you use them for what they’re intended to be used for.

A word after a word after a word is power.

Good jokes are gems. A good idea is hard to come by. I couldn’t give them to someone else, even for money. It just wouldn’t seem right.

People respond when you tell them there is a great future in front of you, you can leave your past behind.

Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.

Men do not shape destiny, Destiny produces the man for the hour.

I think the idea of art kills creativity.

When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily I should have been in that band – or at least in a Pixies cover band.

Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I have really worked, is mine.

All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy. What right have we then to depreciate imagination.

I have always been pushed by the negative. The apparent failure of a play sends me back to my typewriter that very night, before the reviews are out. I am more compelled to get back to work than if I had a success.

One of the things you do when you make a piece of art is you try to make the world you’d rather be in.

Life loves the liver of it.

Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.

When I write a book, I write a book for myself; the reaction is up to the reader. It’s not my business whether people like or dislike it.

Forces that you might think are utterly unrelated to creativity can have a big impact. Technology, obviously, but environment, too. Even financial structures can affect the actual content of a song. The making of music is profoundly affected by the market.

I will never retire unless I have to.

Men cannot not live by exchanging articles, but producing them. They live by work not trade.

I love to sing and I really love to write, but in terms of being onstage, I’m not that comfortable, which I think is sort of clear.

You have to be practical. So every time I say, if you want to write a novel you have to be practical, people get bored. They are disappointed. They are expecting a more dynamic, creative, artistic thing to say. What I want to say is: you have to be practical.

I know that one of the great arts that the writer develops is the art of saying, ‚No. No, I’m finished. Bye.‘ And leaving it alone. I will not write it into the ground. I will not write the life out of it. I won’t do that.

Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.

Work is that which you dislike doing but perform for the sake of external rewards. At school, this takes the form of grades. In society, it means money, status, privilege.

I can’t consciously explain how people feel after reading my books. All is too personal.

I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by those who were inspired. I study the Bible daily.

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

There is nothing in the world so much admired as a man who knows how to bear unhappiness with courage.

I’m not in control of my muse. My muse does all the work.

He ate and drank the precious Words, his Spirit grew robust; He knew no more that he was poor, nor that his frame was Dust.

I have no models in Japanese literature. I created my own style, my own way.

If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you’re a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind.

It would be an egregious mistake to ever refer to me in the same breath as most of the people I write about.

I believe the destiny of your generation – and your nation – is a rendezvous with excellence.

Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.

My music definitely comes from a place of experience. Everything connects to a truth.

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

What keeps me motivated is love and passion.

The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.

The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure.

As a novelist, you could say that I am dreaming while I am awake, and every day I can continue with yesterday’s dream. Because it is a dream, there are so many contradictions and I have to adjust them to make the story work. But, in principle, the original dream does not change.

The secret to the movie business, or any business, is to get a good education in a subject besides film – whether it’s history, psychology, economics, or architecture – so you have something to make a movie about. All the skill in the world isn’t going to help you unless you have something to say.

To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.

Billy Graham is one of my great lifetime heroes. I think he epitomizes the essence of what a Christian leader should be. I have participated in some of his crusades a couple of times in Atlanta. I’ve seen the profound impact he’s had on me personally, and on other people who were not Christians and accepted Christ as Savior.

The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.

I write because writing is something that I have to do. And it doesn’t matter whether people like it or not. When I write, I feel the pressure and anxiety that come with taking an empty piece of paper and trying to fill it with something from your own consciousness.

Of course, there are those critics – New York critics as a rule – who say, ‚Well, Maya Angelou has a new book out and of course it’s good but then she’s a natural writer.‘ Those are the ones I want to grab by the throat and wrestle to the floor because it takes me forever to get it to sing. I work at the language.

Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.

I think, generally, I just cannot really envision life without writing and producing records and singing.

My experience has been that work is almost the best way to pull oneself out of the depths.

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.‘

The writing is important, but the way you say the line and the pause you give it, the facial expression – all of that is very important.

Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure.

But innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about a problem.

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: ‚I’m with you kid. Let’s go.‘

Art never harms itself by keeping aloof from the social problems of the day: rather, by so doing, it more completely realises for us that which we desire.

Courage is knowing what not to fear.

Van Gogh never made a penny in his entire lifetime. He painted because it was his soul, his excitement. It was what aligned him with his Source of being. It’s the same with me and writing.

When I write, when I’m going hot, I don’t want to write more than four hours in a row. After that, you’re pushing it.