My mother encouraged me to be artistic. It was written in a contract at an early age that I would be an artist.

I still derive immense pleasure from remembering how many hod-carrying brickies were encouraged to put on lurex tights and mince up and down the high street, having been assured by know-it-alls like me that a smidgen of blusher really attracted the birds.

He too serves a certain purpose who only stands and cheers.

Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes,‘ he said, his voice rising as applause and cheers mounted. ‚Shake it off. Stop complainin‘. Stop grumblin‘. Stop cryin‘. We are going to press on. We have work to do.

My mother always wanted to give back.

You gotta water your plants. Nobody can water them for you.

My mother came from India to go to the University of California, Berkeley.

I think I first realized I wanted to be in country music and be an artist when I was 10. And I started dragging my parents to festivals, and fairs, and karaoke contests, and I did that for about a year before I came to Nashville for the first time. I was 11 and I had this demo CD of me singing Dixie Chicks and Leanne Rimes songs.

The only service a friend can really render is to keep up your courage by holding up to you a mirror in which you can see a noble image of yourself.

To me, the black black woman is our essential mother, the blacker she is the more us she is and to see the hatred that is turned on her is enough to make me despair, almost entirely, of our future as a people.

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone.

Cooking certain dishes, like roast pork, reminds me of my mother.

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.

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.

When I was nine years old, living on the south side of Chicago, my father was a minister and my mother used to scrub floors. I had seven brothers and four sisters. I told my mama, ‚One of these days I’m going to be big and strong and buy you a beautiful house.‘ That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do with my life, is to take care of my mother.

I believe many people feel like God is mad at them. One day I put a post on Facebook that said, ‚God is not mad at you.‘ Within a few hours, we literally had thousands of positive responses from people saying things like, ‚That is exactly what I needed to hear today.‘ Obviously, this is a message we need to hear.

As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.

My mom was a terrible parent of young children. And thank God – I thank God every time I think of it – I was sent to my paternal grandmother. Ah, but my mother was a great parent of a young adult.

The thing about being an artist today is you get to develop right in front of people’s eyes before you even put out an album.

Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true.

Luxury is the wolf at the door and its fangs are the vanities and conceits germinated by success. When an artist learns this, he knows where the danger is.

To those of you who received honours, awards and distinctions, I say well done. And to the C students, I say you, too, can be president of the United States.

I was very worried about my mother, growing up – a lot. I do not want my children to be worried about me.

My mother was a public school teacher in Virginia, and we didn’t have any money, we just survived on happiness, on being a happy family.

We can improve our relationships with others by leaps and bounds if we become encouragers instead of critics.

An artist has no home in Europe except in Paris.

My mother was born in Baltimore, and before her marriage, she was an artist and teacher of art.

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.

I don’t really have a gimmick or a ‚thing.‘ I’m one of the few artists who gets to be himself every day.

When a person is going through hell, and she encounters someone who went through hellish hell and survived, then she can say, ‚Mine is not so bad as all that. She came through, and so can I.‘

It’s very inexpensive to give a compliment.

I’ve just finished my 20th book this past year and I’m working on my 21st book about the Middle East right now that I’ll finish this year. And I get up early in the morning and when I get tired of the computer and tired of doing research, I walk 20 steps out to my woodshop and I either build furniture or paint paintings. I’m an artist too.

I think I’ve committed the one really bad English crime, which is I’ve risen above my station. I was supposed to be a pop star, and suddenly I’m claiming that I’m an artist of some kind.

I wanted to only create a great perfume, not any perfume that would sell, but a great artistic one that the fans would not feel cheated by.

If my mother knew I did this for a living, she’d kill me. She thinks I’m selling dope.

I tell my fellow reggaetoneros, keep giving it your all and bring more creativity.

If I was just a fan of music, I would think that I was the number one artist in the world.

My mother would kill me if I posed nude! My mother raised me with certain standards.

I wouldn’t ever say if you’re having tough times then there must be something wrong with you or your attitude. Life’s a fight. It’s a good fight of faith. I encourage people to stay up, stay hopeful, stay faith-filled.

I feel like my message is to let people know that God is a good God, that He’s on their side, and no matter what happens, He has a great plan for them.

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.

It’s a curse. I ask God to take this away from me all the time. I do not like being an artist.

I’ve been writing poems since I was in the Navy – to Rosalynn. I found I could say things in poems that I never could in prose. Deeper, more personal things. I could write a poem about my mother that I could never tell my mother. Or feelings about being on a submarine that I would have been too embarrassed to share with fellow submariners.

I’m no hillbilly singer.

Your teammates give you the confidence. They give me the confidence all year, all postseason.

The reason that I’m here at all is because of my relationship with my family and their encouragement of me to be a musician and to work hard. As long as I stay there in that space, I can do anything. That’s my truth.

Encouragement to all women is – let us try to offer help before we have to offer therapy. That is to say, let’s see if we can’t prevent being ill by trying to offer a love of prevention before illness.

When your mother asks, ‚Do you want a piece of advice?‘ it is a mere formality. It doesn’t matter if you answer yes or no. You’re going to get it anyway.

I think you can give a pure artistic product if you understand how to build your own industry.

I want to be an artist, an actress with integrity, and that includes all kinds of parts.

I am Warhol. I am the No. 1 most impactful artist of our generation. I am Shakespeare in the flesh.

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.

Mostly, my flying has been solo, but the preparation for it wasn’t. Without my husband’s help and encouragement, I could not have attempted what I have. Ours has been a contented and reasonable partnership, he with his solo jobs and I with mine. But always with work and play together, conducted under a satisfactory system of dual control.

My mother is a strong, wonderful woman. I could never be anything she didn’t want me to be.

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.

Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.

I really like hip-hop and rap; that’s my main influence. I really wanna be more of a hip-hop artist.

A man who says that no patriot should attack the war until it is over… is saying no good son should warn his mother of a cliff until she has fallen.

Our words will either bring life and victory or death and destruction. If we want to be happy, we have to be serious about speaking words of life that line up with God’s Word.

I prefer to praise people and the world rather than criticize them and it.

I think that every artist – or anybody that’s in business – could benefit from a direct-to-consumer strategy, so I think that that applies to us as artists and content creators, too.