Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.

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

We are not makers of history. We are made by history.

One change always leaves the way open for the establishment of others.

But I think there are a set of experiences that turn a potential writer into a working writer, and then there are places in your life were you start to recognize what you want to do.

The artists of the past who impressed me were the ones who really focused their work.

What we live by we die by.

My friends ask me if I want more kids, and I always say yes, I want more; it’s the best thing you can have in your life.

I don’t know how to have a normal relationship because I try to act normal and love from a normal place and live a normal life, but there is sort of an abnormal magnifying glass, like telescope lens, on everything that happens.

What is true of the individual will be tomorrow true of the whole nation if individuals will but refuse to lose heart and hope.

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

Traveling around the world and preaching for over 70 years did not give much time for reflection.

I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness; I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too. I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more.

The great end of life is not knowledge but action.

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.

He only earns his freedom and his life Who takes them every day by storm.

The truth is I love being alive. And I love feeling free. So if I can’t have those things then I feel like a caged animal and I’d rather not be in a cage. I’d rather be dead. And it’s real simple. And I think it’s not that uncommon.

Cruel leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn cruel.

I don’t pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.

Life loves the liver of it.

You get one life. I’m going to embrace mine.

Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout.

It is true we have won all our wars, but we have paid for them. We don’t want victories anymore.

Things that I felt absolutely sure of but a few years ago, I do not believe now. This thought makes me see more clearly how foolish it would be to expect all men to agree with me.

Yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream.

Of life’s two chief prizes, beauty and truth, I found the first in a loving heart and the second in a laborer’s hand.

I’m not trying to follow a set of rules and stuff. I’m just living my life.

The things hardest to bear are sweetest to remember.

Play not with paradoxes. That caustic which you handle in order to scorch others may happen to sear your own fingers and make them dead to the quality of things.

All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change.

Yesterday’s just a memory, tomorrow is never what it’s supposed to be.

Each life is made up of mistakes and learning, waiting and growing, practicing patience and being persistent.

This is the first age that’s ever paid much attention to the future, which is a little ironic since we may not have one.

If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.

He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.

We are born, so to speak, twice over; born into existence, and born into life; born a human being, and born a man.

‚Hope and change‘ has become a cliche in our nation, and it is daunting to think that any American could hope for change from what God has blessed.

Most of one’s life is one prolonged effort to prevent oneself thinking.

The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams; the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits.

This is not a bad life.

Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon the environment. Environment modifies life but does not govern life. The soul is stronger than its surroundings.

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.

Last year we said, ‚Things can’t go on like this‘, and they didn’t, they got worse.

It’s in responsibility that most people find the meaning that sustains them through life. It’s not in happiness. It’s not in impulsive pleasure.

There’s an ecstatic side to writing. It’s like jazz. It just has a life.

I don’t dislike any of my exes. If I took time to form a relationship, it’s gonna hurt when we move on, but are you puttin‘ White-Out over all that beautiful time together? That was real time in your life. It’s connected to where you are today.

It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It’s called living.

If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.

It is better to live rich than to die rich.

The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it’s not going to happen. I’m fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years.

Contemplation of life after retirement and life after death can help you deal with contemporary challenges.

We occasionally stumble over the truth but most of us pick ourselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

Success in life is founded upon attention to the small things rather than to the large things; to the every day things nearest to us rather than to the things that are remote and uncommon.

My role in society, or any artist’s or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.

The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.

I don’t try to describe the future. I try to prevent it.

I was at a New Year’s Eve party, and someone asked me how was my year, and I said, ‚I honestly think 2011 was the best year of my entire life,‘ and I actually meant it.

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.

One’s past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged.