Everyone enjoys doing the kind of work for which he is best suited.

As a musician and a songwriter, it is an act of the ego to believe that other people might be interested in your point of view. But it is usually an empathetic nature that gets you going in the first place. Music keeps the heart porous in many ways.

I don’t live for the accolades. I’m more so about the music. Making it, and putting it out. Those are the two best feelings.

This desk of mine is one at which a man may die, but from which he cannot resign.

In my later years, I have looked in the mirror each day and found a happy person staring back. Occasionally I wonder why I can be so happy. The answer is that every day of my life I’ve worked only for myself and for the joy that comes from writing and creating. The image in my mirror is not optimistic, but the result of optimal behavior.

For my career, I wouldn’t go racing if I didn’t enjoy it. I still need to have my say, and not just get put with a team and get told to deal with it.

Enthusiasm is the most important thing in life.

I don’t think I am evangelical in my work.

The equal right of all citizens to health, education, work, food, security, culture, science, and wellbeing – that is, the same rights we proclaimed when we began our struggle, in addition to those which emerge from our dreams of justice and equality for all inhabitants of our world – is what I wish for all.

I would say that jazz is my own language.

I always had a knack for improvisation. I can write down the notes I play, but never really had a proper academic musical background. I suppose I’m blessed and cursed by the fact I have that freedom.

I booked my first studio at like 12 or 13. Somewhere in that season of my life, singing along with the radio became me wanting to be on radio, you know.

The answer to all writing, to any career for that matter, is love.

I’ve always been very one-sided about science, and when I was younger, I concentrated almost all my effort on it.

He who enjoys doing and enjoys what he has done is happy.

My life has been very full.

If I had a talent, it was for looking askew at everything, possibly more than my contemporaries. But I had to really push myself to be a writer.

My passion is bringing storylines around and constructing a full body of work rather than just a 16-bar verse.

In England, football is a big thing to talk about, but Liverpool, it’s a special place. You feel it when you make your first step.

Talent grips us. We are overtaken by the beauty of Michelangelo’s sculpture, riveted by Mariah Carey’s angelic voice, doubled over in laughter by the comedy of Robin Williams, and captivated by the on screen performances of Denzel Washington.

Basically, I live to do gigs.

The purpose of our lives is to be happy.

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

I didn’t think it was special to be able to sing.

I knew I’d be in the UFC since I started my career.

Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.

If you get an opportunity to work with David Simon, anybody with good taste would.

I’ve never been a hands-on dad. I’m not ashamed to admit it, but you can’t run a restaurant and be home for tea at 4:30 and bath and change nappies.

A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but sets off every great talent which a man can be possessed of.

The only happiness a brave person ever troubles themselves in asking about, is happiness enough to get their work done.

I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents‘ garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees.

Playing basketball all my life, I’ve collected a lot of different basketball shoes. It’s pretty much all I wear.

Howard Zinn was magical as a teacher. Witty, irreverent, and wise, he loved what he was teaching and clearly wanted his students to love it, also.

I treated it like every day was my last day with a basketball.

Music will never go away, and I will never stop making music; it’s just what capacity or what arena you decide to do it.

I can’t say that my disability has helped my work, but it has allowed me to concentrate on research without having to lecture or sit on boring committees.

Let’s face it. Umpiring is not an easy or happy way to make a living. In the abuse they suffer, and the pay they get for it, you see an imbalance that can only be explained by their need to stay close to a game they can’t resist.

The people you choose to have around you make all the difference. My family and close friends keep me grounded. You have to have a mind of your own and a strong head on your shoulders. Cricket is the most important thing to me, so the rest of it pales in comparison.

Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it.

O, you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you, and I would have ended my life – it was only my art that held me back. Ah, it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I felt was within me.

The immigration issue is, I recognize, one that generates a lot of passion, but it does not make sense for us to want to push talent out.

I’ve always wanted to make a career in the arts, and I think that my only hope at doing that is to make it more about the work.

The things that transfixed you as a child, that you found most exciting was not a passing fancy, but a message about what you’re supposed to do.

Sometimes I wish I had taken the Bob Dylan route and sang songs where my voice would not go out on me every night, so I could have a career if I wanted.

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

I have so much in my life. I want to be of value to the world.

I think any activity you have your kids in, you’re all trying to live vicariously through them. And you’re jealous of the kid that’s naturally more talented or has the facility, the body, the genes, or the God-given talent. People get jealous of that.

As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.

I loved photography and everybody said it was a crazy thing to do because in those days nobody made it into the film business. I mean, unless you were related to somebody there was no way in.

A taste for truth at any cost is a passion which spares nothing.

The important question is not, what will yield to man a few scattered pleasures, but what will render his life happy on the whole amount.

Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.

Refuse to be a lazy Christian, and resist a passive, apathetic attitude.

I didn’t live at school, I lived where I could and studied what I enjoyed studying. I took what I wanted from that education but was making my first record at the same time. I don’t know anyone from school. I was just leading a different life. I was really interested in writing and other things.

I did go to Wellesley, a women’s college. And I am of a kind of strange generation which is transitional in terms of women who wanted to go out and get jobs.

I love wisdom. And you can never be great at anything unless you love it. Not be in love with it, but love the thing, admire the thing. And it seems that if you love the thing, and you don’t just want to possess it, it will find you.

A true artist is expected to be all that is noble-minded, and this is not altogether a mistake; on the other hand, however, in what a mean way are critics allowed to pounce upon us.

At the end of the day, who I really and truly am is a little girl who loved to play the piano.

It doesn’t matter if you want to be a teacher, an astronaut, or a reggaeton singer, you need to study.

Once I get on a puzzle, I can’t get off.

At the end of the day, we started playing football because we loved it.