A home without books is a body without soul.

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.

Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes shine to the stars. Enthusiasm is the sparkle in your eyes, the swing in your gait. The grip of your hand, the irresistible surge of will and energy to execute your ideas.

However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.

If you enjoy living, it is not difficult to keep the sense of wonder.

Books are as useful to a stupid person as a mirror is useful to a blind person.

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 was a very keen reader of science fiction.

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?

I never had to choose a subject – my subject rather chose me.

The good part about youngsters is that they are so fearless. You want to be like them.

There are half a dozen subjects that I return to time and time again, and that doesn’t bother me. Because most of my favorite writers do that, to hunt down the same topic or theme from different directions each time.

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.

Basketball is booming, and it’s not just an Under Armour standpoint: it’s about the game itself. Kids going out and playing and being inspired by what we do on the court.

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.

When I heard Little Richard, I mean, it just set my world on fire.

I read a lot of obscure books and it is nice to open a book.

If we’re going to bring out the best in people, we, too, need to sow seeds of encouragement.

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

Bill Gates has always been a mentor and inspiration for me even before I knew him. Just growing up, I admired how Microsoft was mission-focused.

I’ve just always been a reader.

I believe that when you think of the negative, and you get up discouraged – ‚There’s nothing good in my future‘ – I really believe it almost ties the hands of God. God works where there’s an attitude of faith. I believe faith is all about hope.

Thought is the wind and knowledge the sail.

I wish I could play bass like Larry Graham or Bootsy Collins. My God, I’d give up just about everything else for that.

If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature’s way.

A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

One of the things you do when you make a piece of art is you try to make the world you’d rather be in.

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.

He who has courage and faith will never perish in misery!

He who loves 50 people has 50 woes; he who loves no one has no woes.

With my childhood, it’s a wonder I’m not psychotic. I was the little Jewish boy in the non-Jewish neighborhood. It was a little like being the first Negro enrolled in the all-white school. I grew up in libraries and among books, without friends.

Everything rises and falls on leadership.

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

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.

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

I like nonsense; it wakes up the brain cells.

Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.

There is no Frigate like a book to take us lands away nor any coursers like a page of prancing Poetry.

Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.

You’re not going to make Hemingway better by adding animations.

I don’t mind saying, you know, that I don’t take a salary from the church, and God has blessed me with more money than I could imagine from my books.

God has equipped you to handle difficult things. In fact, He has already planted the seeds of discipline and self-control inside you. You just have to water those seeds with His Word to make them grow!

When I am working on a book or a story, I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you, and it is cool or cold, and you come to your work and warm as you write.

I never wanted to be the next Bruce Lee. I just wanted to be the first Jackie Chan.

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.

Like a pianist runs her fingers over the keys, I’ll search my mind for what to say. Now, the poem may want you to write it. And then sometimes you see a situation and think, ‚I’d like to write about that.‘ Those are two different ways of being approached by a poem, or approaching a poem.

There is nothing so stable as change.

Masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice.

Speculative fiction encompasses that which we could actually do. Sci-fi is that which we’re probably not going to see.

You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

The wicked leader is he who the people despise. The good leader is he who the people revere. The great leader is he who the people say, ‚We did it ourselves.‘

To create something you must be something.

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.

Being a hero is about the shortest-lived profession on earth.

Genius is a potential that lives within you and every other human being. You have many moments of genius in your lifetime. These are the times when you have a uniquely brilliant idea and implement it even if only you are aware of how fantastic it is.

Peace if possible, truth at all costs.

There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.

What makes life dreary is the want of a motive.

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.