How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.

Nothing succeeds like success. Get a little success, and then just get a little more.

A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians.

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

The only way you gain mental toughness is to do things you’re not happy doing. If you continue doing things that you’re satisfied and make you happy, you’re not getting stronger. You’re staying where you’re at. Either you’re getting better, or you’re getting worse. You’re not staying the same.

Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.

I really want a movie made on Sachin Tendulkar’s life. That is something I’m looking forward to. There will be so much emotion to that movie.

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.‘

There were people who incorporated melody before me, but I would deem myself the first person to successfully rap and sing.

You know, watching Dan Marino and Steve Young get nominated to the Hall of Fame… those guys are unbelievable and they did it for so long. I’d love to play like those guys, but there’s still a long way to go and a lot of growing.

I hope that what you take away from my album is not just the music – which I did want to be fun, and I did want it to be about individuality, but please also take away from it that there’s no dream that’s too big.

I don’t know how to function without music. When I’m not making it, I’m listening to it. It gives me courage and takes care of my mind.

Well, Art is Art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know.

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.

It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.

The one way to get me to work my hardest was to doubt me.

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.

What keeps me motivated is love and passion.

I think a number of the leaders are, whether you like it or not, in the hip-hop generation. And when they understand enough, they’ll do wonders. I count on them.

Life begins on the other side of despair.

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.

You can write a short story in two hours. Two hours a day, you have a novel in a year.

If I’d written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people – including me – would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.

I’m not one icon. I’m every icon. I’m an icon that is made out of all the colors on the palette at every time. I have no restrictions. No restrictions.

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: ‚I’m with you kid. Let’s go.‘

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.

I can’t see myself singing the same song twice in a row. That’s terrible.

Opera happens because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong.

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.

Trees go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!

Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day.

What is once well done is done forever.

A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

People who pity themselves think, ‚Why would I try to do anything? I’ll just fail.‘

I tell my fellow reggaetoneros, keep giving it your all and bring more creativity.

If we’re going to bring out the best in people, we, too, need to sow seeds of encouragement.

If you are a leader, you should never forget that everyone needs encouragement. And everyone who receives it – young or old, successful or less-than-successful, unknown or famous – is changed by it.

Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours.

Before I do anything, I think, well what hasn’t been seen. Sometimes, that turns out to be something ghastly and not fit for society. And sometimes that inspiration becomes something that’s really worthwhile.

I’m just an individual who doesn’t feel that I need to have somebody qualify my work in any particular way. I’m working for me.

Every day, the people I meet inspire me… every day, they make me proud… every day they remind me how blessed we are to live in the greatest nation on earth.

The man who knows it can’t be done counts the risk, not the reward.

It’s like a muscle – if you stop going to the gym or stop running, you get weak. The military teaches you these great values, but we don’t keep up the discipline on our own, and we lose it. So wherever you go, keep that discipline up.

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.

The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.

Don’t ever doubt yourselves or waste a second of your life. It’s too short, and you’re too special.

I want to appeal to everyone. Because I’m not saying I’m the best, but we the best.

I’m convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they’re stones that don’t matter. As long as you’re breathing, it’s never too late to do some good.

Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?

It’s a piece of cake until you get to the top. You find you can’t stop playing the game the way you’ve always played it.

I have no models in Japanese literature. I created my own style, my own way.

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.

Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial ‚we.‘

And die of nothing but a rage to live.

If you don’t set the tone for the day, the devil will set it for you.

I don’t set out to write about spirituality; I am free to do something different every time.

The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.

Only the ideas that we really live have any value.

We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us thru that darkness to a safe and sane future.