Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?

After you finish a book, you know, you’re dead. But no one knows you’re dead. All they see is the irresponsibility that comes in after the terrible responsibility of writing.

In college, I think I probably positioned myself as an aspiring writer, meaning I dressed sort of extravagantly and adopted all the semi-Byronic affectations, as if I were writing, although I wasn’t actually doing any writing.

I used to – my earliest memory of waking up with a melody in my head was, you know, 8, 9, 10. I’ve always heard kind of melodies in my head.

Imagination rules the world.

I liked to write from the time I was about 12 or 13. I loved to read. And since I only spoke to my brother, I would write down my thoughts. And I think I wrote some of the worst poetry west of the Rockies. But by the time I was in my 20s, I found myself writing little essays and more poetry – writing at writing.

It was very lucky for me as a writer that I studied the physical sciences rather than English. I wrote for my own amusement. There was no kindly English professor to tell me for my own good how awful my writing really was. And there was no professor with the power to order me what to read, either.

I grew up in a rural area called Vega Baja and I’m the first of so many talented people in this area to make it out. I take great pride to represent where I come from and I am able to show my fans, and everyone who listens and watches me, that anything is possible.

No man was ever wise by chance.

It is not my nature, when I see a people borne down by the weight of their shackles – the oppression of tyranny – to make their life more bitter by heaping upon them greater burdens; but rather would I do all in my power to raise the yoke than to add anything that would tend to crush them.

I felt I really wanted to back off from music completely and just work within the visual arts in some way. I started painting quite passionately at that time.

I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud.

Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart.

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.

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.

I was more independent than any farmer in Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one, every moment.

It is often safer to be in chains than to be free.

Shakespeare didn’t work at all for me.

What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don’t like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don’t expect freedom to survive very long.

I never wanted to write the sort of song that said, ‚Look at how abnormal and crazy and out there I am, man!‘

If my films don’t show a profit, I know I’m doing something right.

We can’t equate democracy with Christianity because the largest democracy on earth is India, which is primarily Hindu. The third largest democracy is Indonesia, which is Islamic. Democracy and freedom are not dependent on Christian beliefs.

In my younger days, I was trying to write sophisticated prose and fantastic stories.

I think everyone should be with who they love.

I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.

I’ve been writing my entire life, and I’ll always write.

Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

If you check your ego at the door when it comes to comedy, you’ve got a pretty good shot at making a great movie that you can commit yourself to, you can jump off the proverbial cliff with, and have a great time, and the audiences respond to that.

When I started Virgin from a basement in west London, there was no great plan or strategy. I didn’t set out to build a business empire… For me, building a business is all about doing something to be proud of, bringing talented people together and creating something that’s going to make a real difference to other people’s lives.

If you write in the same way over and over again, like, in the same place with the same techniques and with the same people, you’re sort of writing the same song over and over again.

Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.

When I write, I tend to twist my hair. Something for my small mind to do, I guess.

Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.

Poetry is the key to the hieroglyphics of nature.

My mom cleaned toilets for a long time, and she’d seen a lot of terrible things, but she was still the strength of our family. And there are women like that all across the country – all around the world – who show that type of fortitude.

I always thought Johnny Carson was just brilliant, and I used to watch him and all the comics that would be on the show every night – and I’d dream about it being me.

You have freedom when you’re easy in your harness.

In the last analysis, what we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do.

Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

The biggest problem with every art is by the use of appearance to create a loftier reality.

In art, at a certain level, there is no ‚better than.‘ It’s just about trying to operate for yourself on the most supreme level, artistically, that you can and hoping that people get it. Trusting that, just because of the way people are built and how interconnected we are, greatness will translate and symmetry will be recognised.

The more you practice, the better you get, the more freedom you have to create.

Good thinkers always prime the pump of ideas. They always look for things to get the thinking process started, because what you put in always impacts what comes out.

Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.

Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric.

Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.

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.

It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.

It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.

I like writing. I get cranky when I can’t. Yes, I write books back to back, and I work very hard on them.

When one has a great deal to put into it a day has a hundred pockets.

Nationalism has a way of oppressing others.

I like nonsense; it wakes up the brain cells.

There are times when a leader must move out ahead of the flock, go off in a new direction, confident that he is leading his people the right way.

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.

I’ve never written a song in my life. It’s all a big hoax.

I’m not a writer who teaches. I’m a teacher who writes.

The men I idolized built their bodies and became somebody – like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger – and I thought, ‚That can be me.‘ So I started working out. The funny thing is I didn’t realize back then that I was having a defining moment.