Deep down, I know I have this intuition or instinct that a lot of creative people have, that their demons are also what make them create.

If you listen through the screen of your desires, then you obviously listen to your own voice; you are listening to your own desires.

Metal, I love metal sounds. If I have a stick with me, I just drag it across a fence. And all fences make different sounds, just like people when they laugh.

Live out of your imagination, not your history.

If you only believe that you’re an artist when you have a big advance in your pocket and a single coming out, I would say that’s quite soulless. You have to have a sense of your own greatness and your own ability from a very deep place inside you. I am the one with the litmus test in my hands of what people need to hear next.

When you are spiritually connected, you are not looking for occasions to be offended, and you are not judging and labeling others. You are in a state of grace in which you know you are connected to God and thus free from the effects of anyone or anything external to yourself.

Having listened to great songwriters like James Taylor and Carole King, I felt there was nothing new that was coming out that really represented me and the way I felt. So I started writing my own stuff.

You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves.

The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most.

If you love something – and there are things that I love – you do want more and more and more of it, but that’s not the way to produce good work.

Thought is the wind and knowledge the sail.

Like anything else that happens on its own, the act of writing is beyond currency. Money is great stuff to have, but when it comes to the act of creation, the best thing is not to think of money too much. It constipates the whole process.

Many people know so little about what is beyond their short range of experience. They look within themselves – and find nothing! Therefore they conclude that there is nothing outside themselves either.

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

I’m tired of fighting. I’ve always known that I can’t be an action star all my life.

It’s very hard to live with yourself if you don’t stick with your moral code.

The true artist is not proud: he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly how far he is from the goal, and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun.

The one thing that I keep learning over and over again is that I don’t know nothing. I mean, that’s my life lesson.

I am not saying I am the best manager in the world. But I’m quite good.

It’s easy to forget who you are.

I exaggerate when I’m angry, but I’ve never gone around telling people things that aren’t true about me.

The personal ego already has a strong element of dysfunction, but the collective ego is, frequently, even more dysfunctional, to the point of absolute insanity.

We can never learn too much of His will towards us, too much of His messages and His advice. The Bible is His word and its study gives at once the foundation for our faith and an inspiration to battle onward in the fight against the tempter.

I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.

I think there is a lot made out of age, and what age you feel.

Thought can be so seductive and hypnotic that it absorbs your attention totally, so you become your thoughts.

Not having hope is not an excuse for not doing something.

You are the universe, you aren’t in the universe.

There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.

It’s not to much fun to know yourself too well or think you do – everyone needs a little conceit to carry them through & past the falls.

You simply have to accept that your demons are a part of you.

Every time you think the problem is ‚out there,‘ that very thought is the problem.

It is a joy to be an artist, but it doesn’t mean very much unless that work is somehow useful in some way and contributes to others.

Imaginary evils soon become real one by indulging our reflections on them.

Sometimes people make it seem like you have to have certain prerequisites or a crazy life story in order to be successful in this world. But the truth is you really don’t.

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

I don’t go around thinking I’m Ray Bradbury all the time.

Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling.

I was brought up to try to see what was wrong and right it. Since I am a writer, writing is how I right it.

It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.

Dealing with backstabbers, there was one thing I learned. They’re only powerful when you got your back turned.

The person we believe ourselves to be will always act in a manner consistent with our self-image.

There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period.

It is good taste, and good taste alone, that possesses the power to sterilize and is always the first handicap to any creative functioning.

Keep a good attitude and do the right thing even when it’s hard. When you do that you are passing the test. And God promises you your marked moments are on their way.

I try to use my experience and the fact that I grew up in the ghetto – I tell people you don’t have to rob or steal to get out of the ghetto.

It doesn’t take much to make me angry.

I am trying to find myself. Sometimes that’s not easy.

I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by those who were inspired. I study the Bible daily.

I don’t have any oratory skills. But I would not use them if I had.

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.

Simply put, you believe that things or people make you unhappy, but this is not accurate. You make yourself unhappy.

If a poet is anybody, he is somebody to whom things made matter very little – somebody who is obsessed by Making.

If we’re really honest with ourselves, most of us will admit that we want to impress people, and this is what’s causing us to do what we do.

No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time a steady eye.

Music helps me tell my story. That’s where I can really be heard. But there’s so much focus on the things that aren’t music.

The society based on production is only productive, not creative.

Whoever despises himself nonetheless respects himself as one who despises.

If you can’t make it good, at least make it look good.

Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.

As soon as man does not take his existence for granted, but beholds it as something unfathomably mysterious, thought begins.