Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them.

The Bible says to ‚fear not,‘ but this doesn’t mean you should never feel scared. It means when you do feel fear, keep going forward and do what you are supposed to do. Or as I like to say, do it afraid.

Meditation is to be aware of every thought and of every feeling, never to say it is right or wrong, but just to watch it and move with it. In that watching, you begin to understand the whole movement of thought and feeling. And out of this awareness comes silence.

I think the foundation of everything in my life is wonder.

The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them.

In the egoic state, your sense of self, your identity, is derived from your thinking mind – in other words, what your mind tells you about yourself: the storyline of you, the memories, the expectations, all the thoughts that go through your head continuously and the emotions that reflect those thoughts. All those things make up your sense of self.

Errors are not in the art but in the artificers.

When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity.

Millions of people were inspired by the Apollo Program. I was five years old when I watched Apollo 11 unfold on television, and without any doubt it was a big contributor to my passions for science, engineering, and exploration.

One often makes music to supplement one’s world.

A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.

Zappa was very technical and impressed by things that were musically challenging – weird time signatures, strange keys, awkward chord sequences. Zappa was important to me as an example of everything I didn’t want to do. I’m very grateful to him, actually.

I have fun with ideas; I play with them.

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

An author writes a book, and that’s the book at that point. And if the author writes the book again, then somehow something has gone wrong, if you see what I mean.

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

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.

All great and beautiful work has come of first gazing without shrinking into the darkness.

See, when you drive home today, you’ve got a big windshield on the front of your car. And you’ve got a little bitty rearview mirror. And the reason the windshield is so large and the rearview mirror is so small is because what’s happened in your past is not near as important as what’s in your future.

I intend to inspire people with my story: motivate young people that grew up like myself, or even not like myself. Just, you know, go through the human experience.

If you are going to write, say, fantasy – stop reading fantasy. You’ve already read too much. Read other things; read westerns, read history, read anything that seems interesting, because if you only read fantasy and then you start to write fantasy, all you’re going to do is recycle the same old stuff and move it around a bit.

If I’m inspired to make a certain kind of song, I’m going to make that kind of song, no matter if it’s what they know me as or think I am.

No one sells a song better than the person that wrote it.

Helped are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conception and realize a partnership in the creation of the Universe that keeps them responsible and cheerful.

I am an anarchist in politics and an impressionist in art as well as a symbolist in literature. Not that I understand what these terms mean, but I take them to be all merely synonyms of pessimist.

I hoped to be able to write a novel which would enable me to live on it while I wrote the next.

I can’t usually stomach a project after I finish it, but for those days and weeks and months that it’s new to me, I do listen to it, and it might change over time, but it’s about function.

It’s kind of exhilarating, walking through a crazy, insane mob. The most miraculous process is watching a song go from a tiny idea in the middle of the night to something that 55,000 people are singing back to you.

I stay out of politics because if I begin thinking too much about politics, I’ll probably… drop writing children’s books and become a political cartoonist again.

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.

I like the idea of working in different genres and transcending genres and hopefully finding success, and ultimately make movies people like.

You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.

My inspiration is R. Kelly, Michael Jackson, and Prince – for the vocals, anyway.

Every man I meet is in some way my superior.

My entire childhood was steeped in poverty. For me, poverty, in a way, was the first inspiration of my life, a commitment to do something for the poor.

Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything, or creating anything. Period. If you ain’t desperate at some point, you ain’t interesting.

Genius, when young, is divine.

Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

I want to make something that is breathtaking. Of course, you can’t make something that is always breathtaking, or you would never be able to breathe. You would collapse.

There is a great discovery still to be made in literature, that of paying literary men by the quantity they do not write.

I’m inspired by people who keep on rolling, no matter their age.

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

I have no models in Japanese literature. I created my own style, my own way.

Ideas have a short shelf life. You must act on them before the expiration date.

If you look deep enough you will see music; the heart of nature being everywhere music.

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.

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

If a small-town boy like me who bagged groceries was able to make his dreams come true, you can too.

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

What makes life dreary is the want of a motive.

The momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.

I’m really bad with answering questions. Usually, I don’t even answer them. I try to find inspiration inside of the question. I think, and I jump from one beam of inspiration or energy to the next, as opposed to explaining the energy.

There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life.

I didn’t have nothin‘ going for me… school, home… until I found something I loved, which was music, and that changed everything.

I don’t give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.

I used to consider the listener. But now I’m in a space where, if I’m not inspired, I can’t really do the music. I can’t feel it.

A loving heart is the truest wisdom.

Educationists should build the capacities of the spirit of inquiry, creativity, entrepreneurial and moral leadership among students and become their role model.

Writing and cafes are strongly linked in my brain.

We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.

My favorite literary heroine is Jo March. It is hard to overstate what she meant to a small, plain girl called Jo, who had a hot temper and a burning ambition to be a writer.