Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed.

All good books have one thing in common – they are truer than if they had really happened.

Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

My heroes are the ones who survived doing it wrong, who made mistakes, but recovered from them.

When I inspire myself, I want to spread the word because its important to be healthy. I don’t think they’re teaching us enough about that. I think we should eat better and exercise. Look who’s saying that – a guy who was 300 pounds – but I’m doing a lot better than I used to. I’m letting people know its important because it makes you feel better.

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.

Most people are unable to write because they are unable to think, and they are unable to think because they congenitally lack the equipment to do so, just as they congenitally lack the equipment to fly over the moon.

I tell everybody, I get so much because I give so much. I give freely, I give all my time, give all my money, give all of my soul. I try to motivate people. I try to inspire them.

I never had to choose a subject – my subject rather chose me.

I know the blessing of having a dad who played 16 years in the league. That experience, and seeing him as an example, let me know that it’s possible. It’s not easy, but it’s possible.

The mere brute pleasure of reading the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing.

An architect should live as little in cities as a painter. Send him to our hills, and let him study there what nature understands by a buttress, and what by a dome.

He ate and drank the precious Words, his Spirit grew robust; He knew no more that he was poor, nor that his frame was Dust.

I only type every third night. I have no plan. My mind is a blank. I sit down. The typewriter gives me things I don’t even know I’m working on. It’s a free lunch. A free dinner. I don’t know how long it is going to continue, but so far there is nothing easier than writing.

Susceptibility to the highest forces is the highest genius.

I imagine that yes is the only living thing.

Around every corner, always protect the engine that powers you.

Hope is the magic carpet that transports us from the present moment into the realm of infinite possibilities.

Man becomes his most creative during war.

I don’t live in the past at all; I’m always wanting to do something new. I make a point of constantly trying to forget and get things out of my mind.

I have wondered about time all my life.

I couldn’t have written things like ‚Low‘ and ‚Heroes,‘ those particular albums, if it hadn’t have been for Berlin and the kind of atmosphere I felt there.

Poetry comes from the highest happiness or the deepest sorrow.

Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous.

I can make something magical and wonderful out of nothing.

Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.

Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to conceive.

Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken.

There’s no formula.

I always dreamt of holding the bat and winning games for India. That was my inspiration to take up cricket.

The spirit is there in every boy; it has to be discovered and brought to light.

Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

There wasn’t much as a kid that inspired me in what I did as an adult, but I was always very interested in what motivates people, and in telling stories and building things.

It is a profound and necessary truth that the deep things in science are not found because they are useful; they were found because it was possible to find them.

I’d like to be the last person alive in the world! Yes, I’d like to know what happens.

The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.

It’s good to wander into the studio and walk out with something that’s better than you’d imagined it to be. If everything was as you imagined it to be, it just wouldn’t be as much fun.

The one excellent thing that can be learned from a lion is that whatever a man intends doing should be done by him with a whole-hearted and strenuous effort.

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.

‚The Lion‘ all began with a picture of a faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself, ‚Let’s try to make a story about it.‘

Don’t gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver or gold.

Our best thoughts come from others.

No man was ever wise by chance.

Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement.

Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.

The age in which we live, this non-stop distraction, is making it more impossible for the young generation to ever have the curiosity or discipline… because you need to be alone to find out anything.

I used to – my earliest memory of waking up with a melody in my head was, you know, 8, 9, 10. I’ve always heard kind of melodies in my head.

Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervor.

I have survivor’s curiosity, I guess.

Always do whatever’s next.

If you can ask a young man to give his life for his country, you can lead people.

If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.

Van Gogh never made a penny in his entire lifetime. He painted because it was his soul, his excitement. It was what aligned him with his Source of being. It’s the same with me and writing.

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.

How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done!

When I’m 40 and nobody wants to see me in a sparkly dress anymore, I’ll be like: ‚Cool, I’ll just go in the studio and write songs for kids.‘

The perplexity of life arises from there being too many interesting things in it for us to be interested properly in any of them.

So many people have this idea: I want to achieve something great or be somebody great. And they neglect the step that leads to greatness. They don’t honor this step at this moment because they have this idea of some future moment where they are going to be great.

From the moment I started writing raps, I was always aware of the pressure. I always wanted to live up to how huge Snoop got, how huge Dre got, how huge Pac got. I was always aware.

I don’t write the books. God writes the books and delivers the speeches.

The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.