I don’t know what can be so dangerous about giving people hope. Causing people to have better relationships. I’m not leading them to some false God or something like that.

It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.

I don’t know what’s better gettin‘ laid or gettin‘ paid.

My message, especially to young people is to have courage to think differently, courage to invent, to travel the unexplored path, courage to discover the impossible and to conquer the problems and succeed. These are great qualities that they must work towards. This is my message to the young people.

People ask me where I got my singing style. I didn’t copy my style from anybody.

Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world.

Music comes to me more readily than words.

I say there’re no depressed words just depressed minds.

There is no great genius without some touch of madness.

In this great country, we celebrate success. We don’t want to penalize those who have done well.

Attitude and enthusiasm play a big part in my life. I get excited about the things that inspire me. I also believe in laughing and having a good time.

Here’s what I’ve learned about deal-breakers. If you have enough natural chemistry with someone, you overlook every single thing that you said would break the deal.

You should not have taken advantage of my sensibility to steal into my affections without my consent.

I firmly believe that unless one has tasted the bitter pill of failure, one cannot aspire enough for success.

I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.

You’re not better than anybody else, but you’re not less than anybody else. You’re a child of the Most High God.

You’re born. You suffer. You die. Fortunately, there’s a loophole.

I believe God is managing affairs and that He doesn’t need any advice from me. With God in charge, I believe everything will work out for the best in the end. So what is there to worry about.

Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, and its power of endurance – the cheerful man will do more in the same time, will do it; better, will preserve it longer, than the sad or sullen.

All I really had was a suitcase and my drums. So I took them up to Seattle and hoped it would work.

There is nothing impossible to him who will try.

Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

I always try to put a seed of hope into people’s hearts. I’m not there to teach them doctrine necessarily, but to let them know that God is a good God, and has a plan for their lives. Hopefully, that will restore their faith, or draw them into faith.

Choose people who lift you up.

‚Two Voices,‘ from my album with Peter Schwalm, is an intact dream-poem. I awoke one night with an image of a piece of paper and all the words of the poem written on it, so I just blundered down to the kitchen table and ‚copied it out.‘

Basically my wife was immature. I’d be at home in the bath and she’d come in and sink my boats.

The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.

Even though you are on the right track – you will get run over if you just sit there.

In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats – maybe it’s imperative that we encounter the defeats – but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. Human beings are more alike than unalike.

Don’t let the incidents which take place in life bring you low. And certainly don’t whine. You can be brought low, that’s OK, but don’t be reduced by them. Just say, ‚That’s life.‘

It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes. What matters most is getting off. You cannot make progress without making decisions.

I’ve been blessed to be somebody that’s been climbing that success mountain top for years of hard work, you know, but now it’s all connecting. And now, the whole world is watching, you know what I’m saying, and it feels good ‚cause it’s good energy. This is all positive vibes, and good vibes and good energy, so it feels incredible.

I began writing at the age of 5, but there was a dark period between the ages of 8 and 16 when I didn’t write. I started again at 16 and have no idea why, but it was suddenly the only thing I wanted to do.

Friends accept you the way you are.

We are not animals. We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice.

We cannot always assure the future of our friends; we have a better chance of assuring our future if we remember who our friends are.

Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.

It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.

Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.

Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

I find a lot of inspiration through visuals. When I was 12, I saw Aurora’s ‚Runaway‘ music video. Something inside me clicked, like, ‚That is what I want to do, no matter whether it goes anywhere or not.‘

Find people who will make you better.

It is easier to stay out than get out.

Life is a journey. When we stop, things don’t go right.

When younger writers and poets, musicians and painters are weakened by a stemming of funds, they come to me saddened, not as full of dreams and excitement and ideas. I am then weakened and diminished, and made less rich.

It is in the thirties that we want friends. In the forties we know they won’t save us any more than love did.

Love matches, so called, have illusion for their father and need for their mother.

Stand a little less between me and the sun.

I do know this… I seem to reach a lot of previously unchurched people. So many people have told me they never went to church until they heard our message of hope that God is a good God who desires to bless those who are faithful and obedient to Him through Jesus Christ.

Whatever you are, be a good one.

The mind of a 19-year-old is very different from the mind of a 26-year-old. You grow. You get into better relationships. You experience more, meet more people, better people. But when you’re in a dark hole at an earlier point in your life – you write about the mindset you’re in at that moment.

I ain’t never far away from a pencil and paper or a tape recorder.

The moment people feel they know what to expect from you, your spell on them is broken. More: You have ceded them power.

Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.

He who does not trust enough, Will not be trusted.

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.

Winning is the most important. Everything is consequence of that.

Find a beautiful piece of art. If you fall in love with Van Gogh or Matisse or John Oliver Killens, or if you fall love with the music of Coltrane, the music of Aretha Franklin, or the music of Chopin – find some beautiful art and admire it, and realize that that was created by human beings just like you, no more human, no less.