I don’t know how much longer I’ll be around. I’ll probably be writing when the Lord says, ‚Maya, Maya Angelou, it’s time.‘

So live with men as if God saw you and speak to God, as if men heard you.

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.

I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about dying, but I like to think that I’ve – if it did occur – that I would die peacefully and not make too much of a fuss about it.

When we build, let us think that we build for ever.

I was enjoying myself writing, because I don’t know what’s going to happen when I take a ride around that corner. You don’t know at all what you’re going to find there. That can be thrilling when you read a book, especially when you’re a kid and you’re reading stories.

I write screenplays in the middle of the night.

Energy begets energy.

There are 309 million people out there that are trying to improve their lot in life. And we’ve got a system that allows them to do it.

Anyone can be a Superman, but nobody can be Jackie Chan.

Early on, I was so impressed with Charles Dickens. I grew up in the South, in a little village in Arkansas, and the whites in my town were really mean, and rude. Dickens, I could tell, wouldn’t be a man who would curse me out and talk to me rudely.

I wanted to write when I was young, but people said it was impossible. Then my parents locked me in a mental institution – they said I was crazy and would never make a living from writing.

Whether if soul did not exist time would exist or not, is a question that may fairly be asked; for if there cannot be someone to count there cannot be anything that can be counted, so that evidently there cannot be number; for number is either what has been, or what can be, counted.

Thomas Jefferson once said, ‚We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.‘ And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.

For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.

The future influences the present just as much as the past.

A rooster crows only when it sees the light. Put him in the dark and he’ll never crow. I have seen the light and I’m crowing.

By the sole fact of his entering into ‚Thought,‘ man represents something entirely singular and absolutely unique in the field of our experience. On a single planet, there could not be more than one centre of emergence for reflexion.

For a true writer, each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.

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.

Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults.

One can not reflect in streaming water. Only those who know internal peace can give it to others.

Civilisations have been destroyed many times, and this civilisation is no different. It can be destroyed. We can think of time in terms of millions of years and life will resume little by little. The cosmos operates for us very urgently, but geological time is different.

Many of my fans often tell me that they listen to my songs to get through things. And therefore, obviously, I hope that they can picture being in a place where things are better… I hope my songs can bring people to a calm place.

I don’t write the books. God writes the books and delivers the speeches.

Every artist preserves deep within him a single source from which, throughout his lifetime, he draws what he is, and what he says. When the source dries up, the work withers and crumbles.

I suppose for me as an artist it wasn’t always just about expressing my work; I really wanted, more than anything else, to contribute in some way to the culture that I was living in. It just seemed like a challenge to move it a little bit towards the way I thought it might be interesting to go.

Labor gives birth to ideas.

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

There have to be reasons that you get up in the morning and you want to live. Why do you want to live? What’s the point? What inspires you? What do you love about the future? If the future does not include being out there among the stars and being a multi-planet species, I find that incredibly depressing.

Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?

The body politic, as well as the human body, begins to die as soon as it is born, and carries itself the causes of its destruction.

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.

Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.

My mother was and will always remain my greatest hero.

A word after a word after a word is power.

I usually don’t like to ‚spoon feed‘ my audience, because I grew up idolizing story tellers who tell stories using symbolism, so it was in my nature to do the same.

I second-guess and overthink and rethink every single thing that I do.

If danger arises in the present moment, there may be an emotion. There may even be pain. But that’s a challenge, not a problem. For a problem to exist, you need time and repetitive mind activity.

Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn’t matter. I’m not sure a bad person can write a good book, If art doesn’t make us better, then what on earth is it for.

All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full.

And the idea of just wandering off to a cafe with a notebook and writing and seeing where that takes me for awhile is just bliss.

Positive anything is better than negative nothing.

Death to me means nothing as long as I can die fast.

When I checked into SEAL Team One many years ago, one of the things that I noticed was there was this old guy, who was younger than I am today, who I decided that I was going to be like. I wanted to emulate what he was doing, and one of those things was he got to work before anybody else.

When you’re around me and really see that all I do is live and breathe for my work, it’s not strange, it’s just Gaga.

Trees go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!

We represent a hustler. I think we represent inspiration. I think we represent, you know, staying down. I think we represent building yourself up from the bootstraps.

The Paralympic Games is about transforming our perception of the world.

My grandpa was a preacher.

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.

When I die, and people realize that I will not be resurrected in three days, they will forget me. That is the way it should be.

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

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

It seemed like a very small possibility for me to become an artist. I didn’t have the need to be on the stage; I didn’t feel the need to be heard. I just needed to write.

No man is rich enough to buy back his past.

I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.

It is a great piece of folly to attempt to make anything out of my early life.

Music is really driving my whole life.