Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the Divine.

The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside us.

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.

When I’m in the house of God, I don’t wear my jewelry, if you’re looking for my jewelry. All you see is my heart of gold.

Mere humans who root through their refrigerators at three o’clock in the morning can only produce writing that matches what they do. And that includes me.

Editing is now the easiest thing on earth to do, and all the things that evolved out of word processing – ‚Oh, let’s put that sentence there, let’s get rid of this‘ – have become commonplace in films and music too.

I am a part of everything that I have read.

Dignify and glorify common labor. It is at the bottom of life that we must begin, not at the top.

Racing, competing, it’s in my blood. It’s part of me, it’s part of my life; I have been doing it all my life and it stands out above everything else.

When new turns of behavior cease to appear in the life of the individual, its behavior ceases to be intelligent.

Stand a little less between me and the sun.

One must be an inventor to read well. There is then creative reading as well as creative writing.

It is beyond a doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience.

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

There are old heads in the world who cannot help me by their example or advice to live worthily and satisfactorily to myself; but I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life.

Yes, there is a terrible moral in ‚Dorian Gray‘ – a moral which the prurient will not be able to find in it, but it will be revealed to all whose minds are healthy. Is this an artistic error? I fear it is. It is the only error in the book.

I’ll do whatever it takes to win games, whether it’s sitting on a bench waving a towel, handing a cup of water to a teammate, or hitting the game-winning shot.

Since day one, since the first time I touched the pen, I wanted to be the best at what I do.

What religion a man holds, to what race he belongs, these things are not important; the really important thing is this knowledge: the knowledge of God’s plan for men. For God has a plan, and that plan is evolution.

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.

When I stop working the rest of the day is posthumous. I’m only really alive when I’m writing.

Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

People ask me where I got my singing style. I didn’t copy my style from anybody.

Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

I’m not critic-proof, and I still take it personally, but I take it less personally now.

The idea of recognising your strengths and using them in as versatile a way as you can is cool to me.

God enters by a private door into every individual.

I tried acting, liked it, and stuck with it. I saw it as the way I would keep that promise to myself of getting back at those who had made my school life a misery.

Cast away your sloth, your lethargy, your coldness, or whatever interferes with your chaste and pure love for Christ, your soul’s husband. Make Him the source, the center, and the circumference of all your soul’s range of delight.

Honoring the priesthood fosters respect, respect promotes reverence, and reverence invites revelation.

There’s something about being in front of a live audience that’s fun. It’s a really interesting, very electric, very alive, and intense experience, and you can’t get it anywhere else. And I’ve been doing it since I was 23, so it’s part of my being – it’s part of my fabric as a person.

Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.

All religions try to benefit people, with the same basic message of the need for love and compassion, for justice and honesty, for contentment.

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

I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the person grow to look like his portrait.

One man with courage is a majority.

I do believe in self-help.

Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.

If something’s important enough, you should try. Even if – the probable outcome is failure.

Literally wrote ‚Starboy‘ in 30 minutes.

There are two kinds of people one can call reasonable: those who serve God with all their heart because they know him, and those who seek him with all their heart because they do not know him.

I’ve started doing book reviews for Barnes & Noble! They saw that I did a lot of book reviews on the site, and they figured that it might not be a bad thing if they got me to do some for them as well. I gave them five categories I’d be interested in reviewing, from art to fiction to music.

Time is kind of an amazing thing because you can do so much with it. I think people underestimate time… I don’t want to just sit on my phone for hours.

It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself.

The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today.

The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can’t be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.

If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.

I find that when I get on stage now, I don’t want to perform a lot of my songs because they don’t feel like me. So I want to make songs that are timeless.

The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.

‚They‘ is… stay away from them, please. There is so many different definitions of ‚they.‘ You might have a personal ‚they.‘ They against you; they want you broken and miserable. They don’t like winners; they don’t like people who’s blessed. So everybody’s got a different ‚they.‘

When people are around us, they should leave better off than they were previously. Rather than feeling discouraged or defeated, people should feel challenged and inspired after spending any time with you and me.

I do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by married men.

A pint of sweat, saves a gallon of blood.

The fearful unbelief is unbelief in yourself.

With patient and firm determination, I am going to press on for jobs. I’m going to press on for equality. I’m going to press on for the sake of our children. I’m going to press on for the sake of all those families who are struggling right now. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I am going to press on.

I’m always afraid of failing. I have to quiet that fear if I’m going to get up in the morning.

You have to steal a lot. You have to have a criminal mentality to be a film director.

Good thinkers always prime the pump of ideas. They always look for things to get the thinking process started, because what you put in always impacts what comes out.