Every movie I make teaches me something. That’s why I keep making them.

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.

The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioned our characters in the wrong way.

The thing about the 600 words, I mean some day, you can do a very, very, very hard day’s work and not write a word, just revising, or you would scribble a few words.

Art is the beautiful way of doing things. Science is the effective way of doing things. Business is the economic way of doing things.

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.

We boil at different degrees.

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.

As long as you blame someone or something else – something outside you that’s bigger than you are – as the source of your problems, the problems won’t get solved.

Art never harms itself by keeping aloof from the social problems of the day: rather, by so doing, it more completely realises for us that which we desire.

Now I am older, I understand we have to accept who we are.

I am not very good with relationships. With anyone. I can’t be locked up with anyone for too long.

We deem those happy who from the experience of life have learnt to bear its ills without being overcome by them.

To do all that one is able to do, is to be a man; to do all that one would like to do, is to be a god.

Responsibility, I believe, accrues through privilege.

I’ve realized that being happy is a choice. You never want to rub anybody the wrong way or not be fun to be around, but you have to be happy. When I get logical and I don’t trust my instincts – Thats when I get in trouble.

I wish they would only take me as I am.

For me, I used to be shy towards journalism because it wasn’t poetry. And then I realized that the events that I covered in essays that became journalism were actually great because they inspired me, and they became my muse.

Why do I not seek some real good; one which I could feel, not one which I could display?

I believe that having a spiritual life is so important in everybody’s life.

Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order.

There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot.

You know, you can make a small mistake in language or etiquette in Britain, or you could when I was younger, and really be made to feel it, and it’s the flick of a lash, but it would sting, and especially at school where there’s not much privacy, and so on. You could, yes, undoubtedly be made to feel crushed.

I’m like a recovering perfectionist. For me it’s one day at a time.

No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.

I was so rude when I was a little girl.

It usually helps me write by reading – somehow the reading gear in your head turns the writing gear.

All of my records, I produced, put together completely. All of them. Maybe Drake might come with an idea, and I might finish it. You gotta remember what a producer is. Quincy Jones is a producer.

I leave the genre labeling to other people. I really do. If I were to think too hard about it, that would stifle you creatively. If you think too hard about who other people want you to be as an artist, it stops you from being who you want to be as an artist.

I always want to create and do things, or draw.

I enjoy being involved in making the artwork for albums and stupid stuff like that.

We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.

We do not yet possess ourselves, and we know at the same time that we are much more.

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

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

I kept writing not because I felt I was so good, but because I felt they were so bad, including Shakespeare, all those. The stilted formalism, like chewing cardboard.

I’m very aware and very conscious of the path I chose in life, and very aware of the path I didn’t choose.

If you choose to do something, attack it. You can hate me, but there’s one thing you can’t say about me – that I didn’t attack it.

Make bold choices and make mistakes. It’s all those things that add up to the person you become.

The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.

I didn’t leave bodybuilding until I felt that I had gone as far as I could go. It will be the same with my film career. When I feel the time is right, I will then consider public service. I feel that the highest honor comes from serving people and your country.

Shun no toil to make yourself remarkable by some talent or other; yet do not devote yourself to one branch exclusively. Strive to get clear notions about all. Give up no science entirely; for science is but one.

Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward.

The thing about being an artist today is you get to develop right in front of people’s eyes before you even put out an album.

Necessity… the mother of invention.

Those movies sure got me into a rut.

One thing about me is I try to be honest.

I think one of my pursuits over the years is trying to answer the question of, ‚What else can you do with a voice other than stand in front of a microphone and sing?‘

You have to develop ways so that you can take up for yourself, and then you take up for someone else. And so sooner or later, you have enough courage to really stand up for the human race and say, ‚I’m a representative.‘

I resigned from the Marine Corps and flying in 1974, even though I loved them both. I quit because I no longer wanted to fight for peace. Instead, I believe we can build a more sustainable peace by working for prosperity.

I am afraid that the schools will prove the very gates of hell, unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures and engraving them in the heart of the youth.

What is a fear of living? It’s being preeminently afraid of dying. It is not doing what you came here to do, out of timidity and spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility for yourself – for the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don’t know what you’re here to do, then just do some good.

I’m in this business to be creative – I’ll even diminish it and say to be a content provider.

My philosophy is: It’s none of my business what people say of me and think of me.

When I first went to places where people were suffering from war and persecution, I felt ashamed of my feelings of sadness. I could see more possibilities in my life.

I used to get into a lot of fights.

I’ve 20,000 hours of clinical practice; you’re not naive after the first few thousand. I’ve helped people deal with things that most people can’t imagine.

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.

Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is incumbent on me to know my self, to know it completely, to know its minutiae, its characteristics, its subtleties, and its very atoms.

I just have always felt that people don’t change, circumstances change.

I’m rather kind of old school, thinking that when an artist does his work, it’s no longer his… I just see what people make of it.