Don’t be a writer; it’s a terrible way to live your life. There’s nothing to be gained from it but poverty and obscurity and solitude. So if you have a taste for all those things, which means that you really are burning to do it, then go ahead and do it. But don’t expect anything from anybody.

I didn’t want to play it boring and safe. I also didn’t want to innovate too much. Second albums, man, they’re even scarier than first ones.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.

A black person grows up in this country – and in many places – knowing that racism will be as familiar as salt to the tongue. Also, it can be as dangerous as too much salt. I think that you must struggle for betterment for yourself and for everyone.

Find a job you like and you add five days to every week.

What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.

Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.

Every bad situation is a blues song waiting to happen.

It’s not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewere, would much rather you weren’t doing.

Many people mistake our work for our vocation. Our vocation is the love of Jesus.

Those who create are rare; those who cannot are numerous. Therefore, the latter are stronger.

Quitting doesn’t enter my mind.

Keep your nose out the sky, keep your heart to god, and keep your face to the raising sun.

With self-discipline most anything is possible.

No person who is not a great sculptor or painter can be an architect. If he is not a sculptor or painter, he can only be a builder.

Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it.

The ladder of success is never crowded at the top.

I think that the idea of having a different approach to every single one of my albums is so exciting to me. I never want to make the same record twice. Why do it? What’s the point?

Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.

If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it.

Perhaps it’s good for one to suffer. Can an artist do anything if he’s happy? Would he ever want to do anything? What is art, after all, but a protest against the horrible inclemency of life?

I have short goals – to get better every day, to help my teammates every day – but my only ultimate goal is to win an NBA championship. It’s all that matters. I dream about it. I dream about it all the time, how it would look, how it would feel. It would be so amazing.

I’m a hard guy to live with. I’m like a caged animal. I’m up all night walking around the living room. It’s hard for me to come down from what I do.

I was always interested in choreography – in making people think and feel something.

Artistic temperament is the disease that afflicts amateurs.

Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.

For me, money is not my definition of success. Inspiring people is a definition of success.

Baseball was, is and always will be to me the best game in the world.

Most people dream a dream when they are asleep. But to be a writer, you have to dream while you are awake, intentionally. So I get up early in the morning, 4 o’clock, and I sit at my desk and what I do is just dream. After three or four hours, that’s enough. In the afternoon, I run. The next day, the dream will continue.

Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.

Football is unconditional love.

Love is easy, and I love writing. You can’t resist love. You get an idea, someone says something, and you’re in love.

I draw from the crowd a lot.

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

Once you begin to fall off the track and believe you breathe different air to everyone else, you’re doomed; you’re finished.

No great intellectual thing was ever done by great effort.

Never lose a holy curiosity.

Bring them on.

It’s always a struggle growing up in Akron.

Work aside, we come to New York for the possibility of interaction and inspiration.

Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.

Man is only great when he acts from passion.

It’s pretty intense writing about my own life, my own struggles.

If one could be friendly with women, what a pleasure – the relationship so secret and private compared with relations with men. Why not write about it truthfully?

Most people want to avoid pain, and discipline is usually painful.

I guess you could say it’s always been my destiny to be a performer.

Let us have no machine-made ornament at all; it is all bad and worthless and ugly.

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

Players now have a groin injury for months and months, and I often think they don’t really give a toss whether they’re playing or not because they’re getting paid anyway.

Success isn’t supposed to happen, no matter how hard you work. There’s no guarantee you’re going to succeed. There’s nothing set in stone.

The job of art is to chase ugliness away.

Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.

And die of nothing but a rage to live.

No man ever achieved worth-while success who did not, at one time or other, find himself with at least one foot hanging well over the brink of failure.

I can promise you that when I go to Sacramento, I will pump up Sacramento.

The person who grieves suffers his passion to grow upon him; he indulges it, he loves it; but this never happens in the case of actual pain, which no man ever willingly endured for any considerable time.

Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.

I know I want to always do the best I can.

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

I’m thrilled to have Corona join me on my ‚X100PRE‘ Tour to give my fans a taste of Corona Estereo Beach and showcase their support of Latin music. It’s not solely about the music – it’s about the culture, creativity, and contributing to the movement that connects us all together.