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.

We are like boxers, one never knows how much longer one has.

Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.

What kind of people do they think we are? Is it possible they do not realize that we shall never cease to persevere against them until they have been taught a lesson which they and the world will never forget?

Life is too short for long-term grudges.

Ideas can be life-changing. Sometimes all you need to open the door is just one more good idea.

We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.

Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you’re a human being, you feel, you suffer. You’re gay, you’re sick, you’re nervous or whatever.

We are not retreating – we are advancing in another direction.

My mother says I was writing before I was crawling. I wrote in the dirt with a twig.

People may think I’m trying something new by telling stories, but they’re just jokes connected to give the illusion of stories. But really, I just continue using my imagination and creating. That’s what I do.

I don’t need therapy. I’m not going to see a therapist; comedy acts as my therapy. I put my problems out there. I talk about them. I talk about everything before anybody has a chance.

If I had a stock of fabulous sounds I would just always use them. I wouldn’t bother to find new ones.

Give yourself more opportunities for privacy, when you are not bombarded with duties and obligations. Privacy is not a rejection of those you love; it is your deserved respite for recharging your batteries.

I tweet in the morning and the evening. To write 12 hours a day, there is a moment when you’re really tired. It’s my relaxing time.

I soothe my conscience now with the thought that it is better for hard words to be on paper than that Mummy should carry them in her heart.

Everything that’s created comes out of silence. Your thoughts emerge from the nothingness of silence. Your words come out of this void. Your very essence emerged from emptiness. All creativity requires some stillness.

My purpose is to make exciting music, and I feel like I’ll be doing that for the rest of my life, so there’s no pressure.

I want to go and go, and then drop dead in the middle of something I’m loving to do. And if that doesn’t happen, if I wind up sitting in a wheelchair, at least I’ll have my high heels on.

Morse conquered his electrical difficulties although he was only a painter, and I don’t intend to give in either till all is completed.

Confidence is always a good thing to have going into the weekend. Especially where it’s quite difficult to put the lap together.

If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water.

We have an epidemic of insecure people in our society today.

Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure.

I wake up in the morning and my mind starts making sentences, and I have to get rid of them fast – talk them or write them down.

I was awfully curious to find out why I didn’t go insane.

I’m an inventor.

Life is filled with detours and dead ends, trials and challenges of every kind. Each of us has likely had times when distress, anguish, and despair almost consumed us.

I have a message to give to the world, and I shall not be thwarted.

Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with – a man is what he makes of himself.

My body is weird. I wake up when the sun comes up, and it’s hard for me to go to sleep. My thoughts just take over.

I’m not going to stop having problems.

I have the ’77 Million Paintings‘ running in my studio a lot of the time. Occasionally I’ll look up from what I’m doing and I think, ‚God, I’ve never seen anything like that before!‘ And that’s a real thrill.

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.

I should be a postage stamp, because that’s the only way I’ll ever get licked. I’m beautiful. I’m fast. I’m so mean I make medicine sick. I can’t possibly be beat.

About the time we can make the ends meet, somebody moves the ends.

All my pictures are built around the idea of getting in trouble and so giving me the chance to be desperately serious in my attempt to appear as a normal little gentleman.

Success is not a stop sign.

I think that the digital media are interesting enough in their own right to be worth originating something in.

Flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success.

Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light.

Worry – a God, invisible but omnipotent. It steals the bloom from the cheek and lightness from the pulse; it takes away the appetite, and turns the hair gray.

‚Victory Lap,‘ even the title. It’s the accumulation of trial and error; that’s what I represent; trial and error.

It took me 40 years to write my first book. When I was a child, I was encouraged to go to school. I was not encouraged to follow the career of a writer because my parents thought that I was going to starve to death.

What one has, one ought to use: and whatever he does he should do with all his might.

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.

Most of those melodies are me trying to find out what notes fit, and then hitting ones that don’t fit in a very interesting way.

You’ve got to have faith in what you’re doing and not take no for an answer.

The men who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world, brother.

It’s like a muscle – if you stop going to the gym or stop running, you get weak. The military teaches you these great values, but we don’t keep up the discipline on our own, and we lose it. So wherever you go, keep that discipline up.

I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate.

In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

In all seriousness, people think that it’s the ideas that are important. Well, everyone has ideas, all the time. I tend to write mine down and remember them, but at some point you have to apply the bum to the seat and knock out about sixty five thousand words – that’s how long a novel is.

Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.

I always had music growing up, but music was also like a journal. It was like my personal diary or personal journal. A lot of the things I couldn’t express to an individual, I would express them in my music.

Writing is challenging work because it’s so easy to get consumed with how it’s going, what’s going to happen to it, who’s going to like or not like it. You want to get all of that stuff out of your head and just let the work flow.

Women in particular need to keep an eye on their physical and mental health, because if we’re scurrying to and from appointments and errands, we don’t have a lot of time to take care of ourselves. We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our own ‚to do‘ list.

Americans never quit.

Self-belief and hard work will always earn you success.