Genius, when young, is divine.

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.

My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.

I seem to turn out stories that violate the discipline of the short story form and don’t obey the rules of progression for novels. I don’t think about a particular form: I think more about fiction, let’s say a chunk of fiction.

Collecting facts is important. Knowledge is important. But if you don’t have an imagination to use the knowledge, civilization is nowhere.

Hip-hop saved my life, man. It’s the only thing I’ve ever been even decent at. I don’t know how to do anything else.

No great thing is created suddenly.

Do not think of your faults, still less of other’s faults; look for what is good and strong, and try to imitate it. Your faults will drop off, like dead leaves, when their time comes.

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

I always like to create things that get attention. It used to be a problem when I wasn’t famous. Now, I can do whatever I want and people have to accept it.

Aptitude found in the understanding and is often inherited. Genius coming from reason and imagination, rarely.

I have to write 100 songs before you write the first good one.

I don’t think of myself as an artist. I’m just a guy who can write.

There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it’s like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.

A fortunate author can write maybe twelve novels in his lifetime.

No art can be noble which is incapable of expressing thought, and no art is capable of expressing thought which does not change.

Always have something beautiful in sight, even if it’s just a daisy in a jelly glass.

Real art is basic emotion. If a scene is handled with simplicity – and I don’t mean simple – it’ll be good, and the public will know it.

The artist in me cries out for design.

If I’m inspired to make a certain kind of song, I’m going to make that kind of song, no matter if it’s what they know me as or think I am.

What kind of people do they think we are? Is it possible they do not realize that we shall never cease to persevere against them until they have been taught a lesson which they and the world will never forget?

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

You fail only if you stop writing.

Faith activates God – Fear activates the Enemy.

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.

When I am working on a book or a story, I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you, and it is cool or cold, and you come to your work and warm as you write.

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.

It is better to imitate ancient than modern work.

My priority is my books, at least at this point. What I have to do is write the narrative of this time.

The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one: dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation. I don’t think I solve problems in my poetry; I think I uncover the problems.

Every bad situation is a blues song waiting to happen.

When I have an idea, I turn down the flame, as if it were a little alcohol stove, as low as it will go. Then it explodes and that is my idea.

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.

The technology keeps moving forward, which makes it easier for the artists to tell their stories and paint the pictures they want.

It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.

Irregularity and want of method are only supportable in men of great learning or genius, who are often too full to be exact, and therefore they choose to throw down their pearls in heaps before the reader, rather than be at the pains of stringing them.

If you wish to be a writer, write.

I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.

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.

Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.

Good leaders must communicate vision clearly, creatively, and continually. However, the vision doesn’t come alive until the leader models it.

The truth of it is that every singer out there with songs on the radio is raising the next generation, so make your words count.

There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.

All of my music is honest.

Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.

Most poets are young simply because they have not been caught up. Show me an old poet, and I’ll show you, more often than not, either a madman or a master… it’s when you begin to lie to yourself in a poem in order simply to make a poem that you fail. That is why I do not rework poems.

There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.

We all sort of do want incentives for creative people to still exist at a certain level. You know, maybe rock stars shouldn’t make as much; who knows? But you want as much creativity to take place in the future as took place in the past.

I gather from motivation around me – from a lot of personalities who have done well in their respective fields.

Youth is the period in which a man can be hopeless. The end of every episode is the end of the world. But the power of hoping through everything, the knowledge that the soul survives its adventures, that great inspiration comes to the middle-aged.

Cause I’m a musician, I’m not really good at posing and being a model, like, modeling.

Prince Charles is definitely my hero; he uses his position to do only good in this world.

I’ve never been to New Zealand before. But one of my role models, Xena, the warrior princess, comes from there.

Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall.

If you are going to write, say, fantasy – stop reading fantasy. You’ve already read too much. Read other things; read westerns, read history, read anything that seems interesting, because if you only read fantasy and then you start to write fantasy, all you’re going to do is recycle the same old stuff and move it around a bit.

But innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about a problem.

I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.

Before ever meeting Priyanka Chopra, I had heard her name coming out of Bollywood and was impressed: she was beautiful, talented, had made nearly 50 movies, earned multiple awards – a massive star.

Bravery never goes out of fashion.

I would venture to guess that the biggest reason creative types don’t produce isn’t because they don’t have vision… or talent… in most cases, it’s a lack of discipline.

Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.