Find a beautiful piece of art. If you fall in love with Van Gogh or Matisse or John Oliver Killens, or if you fall love with the music of Coltrane, the music of Aretha Franklin, or the music of Chopin – find some beautiful art and admire it, and realize that that was created by human beings just like you, no more human, no less.

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 only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse.

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.

The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one: dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation. I don’t think I solve problems in my poetry; I think I uncover the problems.

On Sundays when I speak, I hopefully give somebody something that they can use the next day at work or at home.

I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.

The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.

It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.

Sometimes, if you begin to sing in a halfhearted mood, you can sing yourself up the ladder. Singing will often make the heart rise.

Sleeping is no mean art: for its sake one must stay awake all day.

I think the idea of art kills creativity.

The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away such parts of the marble block as are not needed – it is a process of elimination.

You do things when the opportunities come along. I’ve had periods in my life when I’ve had a bundle of ideas come along, and I’ve had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I’ll do something. If not, I won’t do a damn thing.

To do a dull thing with style-now that’s what I call art.

The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible.

Even if you have nothing to write, write and say so.

It’s lack that gives us inspiration. It’s not fullness.

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

If you can’t make it good, at least make it look good.

God wants to use you to make other people happy! And the happier you make others, the happier you will be because you reap what you sow.

I’ve had two cancer bouts in my years on the Court, and the first one, Justice O’Connor told me, ‚Now, you do the chemotherapy on Friday because you’ll get over it during the weekend and you can be back in court on Monday.‘

Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion. This is not a function of any other art.

I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream.

For me, writing a novel is like having a dream. Writing a novel lets me intentionally dream while I’m still awake. I can continue yesterday’s dream today, something you can’t normally do in everyday life.

My lyrics are generated by various peculiar processes. Very random and similar to automatic writing.

Love and desire are the spirit’s wings to great deeds.

A lot of people don’t realise I came out of the Smoky Mountains with a load of songs.

Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.

Yes, and I can sit down on a white piece of paper and work because I don’t believe too much into inspiration, only I’m waiting for inspiration, work and then inspiration may come. It’s a little too easy to say that.

Never deprive someone of hope; it might be all they have.

Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed.

Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

My mother had a saying: ‚Kamala, you may be the first to do many things, but make sure you’re not the last.‘

Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something.

The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.

What inspires me about rap is that it’s written in an almost poetic way. I just think it’s so cool.

We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

The minute you got the Nobel Peace Prize, things that I said yesterday, with nobody paying too much attention, I say the same things after I got it – oh! It was quite crucial for people, and it helped our morale because apartheid did look invincible.

In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.

I think a number of the leaders are, whether you like it or not, in the hip-hop generation. And when they understand enough, they’ll do wonders. I count on them.

No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.

People always say that you can’t please everybody. I think that’s a cop-out. Why not attempt it? ‚Cause think of all the people you will please if you try.

I like to work with artists from around the world. There are so many new inspiring filmmakers.

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.

I think most of the people involved in any art always secretly wonder whether they are really there because they’re good or there because they’re lucky.

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

If I’m gonna write songs about my exes, they can write songs about me. That’s how it works.

Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pocket. But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past.

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

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.

The X is an amazing car, but we kind of got carried away with the art and technology. Obviously, you want great art. You want great technology. But we did get a little distracted from our mission, which was to advance the cause of electric vehicles. And it probably delayed us a little bit with the Model 3 as well.

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.

Howard Zinn was magical as a teacher. Witty, irreverent, and wise, he loved what he was teaching and clearly wanted his students to love it, also.

The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others.

There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.

When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.