I don’t know if I’m selfless – I still want to make a great record. I want to make a hit record. I want to tour; that’s not completely selfless. But the truth is I’m not interested in people coming to my show for me as much as I am for them coming to my show for themselves. That’s always been how I am.

The love we give away is the only love we keep.

To the audience, it’s like I’m changing the subject every five seconds, but to me, my show’s almost like a 90-minute song that I know exactly. I wrote every note, and I know exactly where everything is.

If you care about other people, you might try to organize to undermine power and authority. That’s not going to happen if you care only about yourself.

You’ve got to keep your finger on the pulse of what your audience is thinking, and know what they’ll accept from you.

I think that people are interested seeing me on the screen.

I have to live for others and not for myself: that’s middle-class morality.

I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.

Charity bestowed upon those who are worthy of it is like good seed sown on a good soil that yields an abundance of fruits. But alms given to those who are yet under the tyrannical yoke of the passions are like seed deposited in a bad soil. The passions of the receiver of the alms choke, as it were, the growth of merits.

Giving is better than receiving because giving starts the receiving process.

Stage actors are usually much more conscious of speaking up and making sure that everyone can hear in the back of the theatre; a film actor probably thinks of that a little less.

I was never focused on me, me, me all the time. I was always focused on somebody else.

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.

I have somewhere met with the epitaph on a charitable man which has pleased me very much. I cannot recollect the words, but here is the sense of it: ‚What I spent I lost; what I possessed is left to others; what I gave away remains with me.‘

I like touring extensively because I think the more hours you spend onstage, the more you know who you are onstage.

When I started making my own records, I had this idea of drowning out the singer and putting the rest in the foreground. It was the background that interested me.

Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours.

A gentleman is one who puts more into the world than he takes out.

I’m generous. I give good tips. It’s just – the way I live my life, ironically enough, is: I don’t want anything. I’m not a consumer. I don’t crave objects.

We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.

Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing.

What I’m hoping is that every album I’m going to do will give my audience something different, and that they’ll grow as I do.

I work hard for the audience. It’s entertainment. I don’t need validation.

Instruments sound interesting, not because of their sound, but because of the relationship a player has with them. Instrumentalists build a rapport with their instruments, which is what you like and respond to.

Giving is true having.

I spend just as much time on how people hear my music as I do the actual music, no matter how long it takes. I’m such a visual artist as well that it always goes hand-in-hand.

How to play music may be known. At the commencement of the piece, all the parts should sound together. As it proceeds, they should be in harmony while severally distinct and flowing without break, and thus on to the conclusion.

Earn your success based on service to others, not at the expense of others.

The highest form of worship is the worship of unselfish Christian service. The greatest form of praise is the sound of consecrated feet seeking out the lost and helpless.

What was important to me was entertaining the audience, and whether that meant winning, losing, singing, or whatever it was on the live show we were doing every week, which was awesome, I was game for it.

I really wanted to break the mold of what modern touring is right now.

When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.

Many Tibetans sacrifice their lives.

Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity. So it’s like, just take advantage of these last few years because none of this is ever going to happen again. You’d better be prepared for doing a lot of touring because that’s really the only unique situation that’s going to be left.

I’d rather give my life than be afraid to give it.

It’s amazing if you just listen to people. They tell you all the time things that you can do for them, without even realizing what they’re doing. I’ve learned to take notice of those things and if it’s something that I feel God wants me to do, then I try to do that to add joy to their life.

I have spent the greater part of my life in a hotel room with seven or eight kids, looking after everyone, sorting out fights, wiping noses, handing out towels, not having a clean towel left for me.

None of us has any personal interest above the interests of the country. Our country is more important than our careers.

A faithful woman can become a devoted daughter of God – more concerned with being righteous than with being selfish, more anxious to exercise compassion than to exercise dominion, more committed to integrity than to notoriety. And she knows of her own infinite worth.

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‚If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?‘ But… the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‚If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?‘

Generosity is not giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is giving me that which you need more than I do.

Love grows by giving. The love we give away is the only love we keep. The only way to retain love is to give it away.

If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself.

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.

To be able to throw one’s self away for the sake of a moment, to be able to sacrifice years for a woman’s smile – that is happiness.

I felt like, for so many years – and I still even feel it – as a girl, you can’t really expect to go on stage and dress like a boy and jump around and scream with the audience and mosh and stuff, and every time that happens, I feel really proud.

Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.

It is more agreeable to have the power to give than to receive.

I’ll be like Bob Hope, touring when I’m 100.

The main rule to me is to honor God with your life. To life a life of integrity. Not be selfish. You know, help others. But that’s really the essence of the Christian faith.

But I think we’re also just talking about the literacy of the audience. The visual literacy of the audience. They’ve seen so many images now, especially here in the States. There’s so much to look at, to watch. So the visual storytelling literacy is harder to impress.

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

He who cannot give anything away cannot feel anything either.

Phish and Dave Matthews really know their audiences and really treat them well.

I learned how important it is to entertain people and give them a reason to come and watch you play.

A film is sort of binary – it either works or it doesn’t work. It has nothing to do with how good a job you do. If you bring it up to an adequate level where the audience goes with the movie, then it works, that is all.

Christmas is a tonic for our souls. It moves us to think of others rather than of ourselves. It directs our thoughts to giving.

So when I speak in front of thousands, tens of thousands of people, I don’t really get nervous because I know what I want to say and I know what message I want to give.

The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.