I feel like my music has become a lot of things. It’s hard to label the evolution, but I like there to be an evolution. I just like to paint with all different kinds of colors.

No one’s policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analysing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes.

We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork, you must make a decision.

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

When I understand myself, I understand you, and out of that understanding comes love.

I’m no genius.

There’s no formula.

I used to pray that God would make me a great athlete, and He never did.

I knew I wanted to do something creative. I didn’t think I’d have the luxury of doing something like that, because I didn’t know anyone who had pursued anything they really adored, but I had dreams for singing or writing.

The soul never thinks without a picture.

In the future, you won’t buy artists‘ works; you’ll buy software that makes original pieces of ‚their‘ works, or that recreates their way of looking at things. You could buy a Shostakovich box, or you could buy a Brahms box. You might want some Shostakovich slow-movement-like music to be generated. So then you use that box.

If selfishness is the key to being miserable, then selflessness must be the key to being happy!

One of the things that we’re trying to do with Creative Labs and all our experiences is explore things that aren’t all tied to Facebook identity. Some things will be, but not everything will have to be, because there are some sets of experiences that are just better with other identities.

You might win some, you might lose some. But you go in, you challenge yourself, you become a better man, a better individual, a better fighter.

Love is an interesting thing. Perhaps I’ve never been in love before – I don’t really know? I think I have. I guess it’s subjective in that way.

I write screenplays in the middle of the night.

I just kind of wake up with a new idea and new dreams every day, and I follow that dream, as they say.

I’ve always believed in God. I also think that’s the sort of thing that either comes as part of the equipment, the capacity to believe, or at some point in your life, when you’re in a position where you actually need help from a power greater than yourself, you simply make an agreement.

Growth is the great separator between those who succeed and those who do not. When I see a person beginning to separate themselves from the pack, it’s almost always due to personal growth.

I love being busy.

I don’t control my writing – it controls me.

I have some good friends of my own who happen to be gay, and when it comes to gay, straight, or whatever, I’m for anything life-affirmative. I’m for gay power, straight power, male power, female power; everybody should feel empowered without oppressing anyone who’s different.

I often get ideas for songs on the tour bus at odd times. Like at 6am when no one is around, I’d just write.

How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.

I’ve always written songs the same way. You learn different tricks – you learn craft, you learn structure, all that – as you go.

Like any creative human being, I would like a bit more control so that it would be a little easier for me when the director says, ‚One tear, right now,‘ that one tear would pop out.

A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.

Like it or not, there are a lot of dance teachers in this country who respect me, whether they personally like me or not.

There’s not some idea I’m going to create a work that’s going to change everybody’s consciousness.

There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.

If you don’t live your life, then who will?

You may think it was a very little thing, and in these days it seems to me like a trifle, but it was a most important incident in my life. I could scarcely credit that I, the poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day; that by honest work, I had earned a dollar. I was a more hopeful and thoughtful boy from that time.

The next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department.

We all know we have a finite period of time. I just feel if I’m going to be alive, I want to be challenged – to be as immortal as possible. The path to that isn’t an easy way, but it’s a rewarding way.

Writing is a solitary experience. I’m extremely superstitious. If I talk about the book or name the title out loud before finishing, I feel the energy I need to write will be drained. It’s so intimate, I can’t even share it with my wife.

Reversing your treatment of the man you have wronged is better than asking his forgiveness.

I love the attention but I don’t like too much of it.

We don’t want to promote any system that treats the fact that an individual is LGBT as a personality disorder. And anything that perpetuates that perception is harmful – not only to that member of the community but the entire community.

The roots of the problems we face in the world, in our national life, and in our family and personal lives are spiritual.

I resigned from the Marine Corps and flying in 1974, even though I loved them both. I quit because I no longer wanted to fight for peace. Instead, I believe we can build a more sustainable peace by working for prosperity.

Because I was suspicious of the traditional Christian church, I tended to tar them all with the same brush. That was a mistake, because there are righteous people working in a whole rainbow of belief systems – from Hasidic Jews to right-wing Bible Belters to charismatic Catholics.

If you were to ask me what I want to do – I don’t want to be a celebrity, I want to make a difference.

I’m the type person, my safe place to be emotional is the booth.

Complaining is dangerous business. It can damage or even destroy your relationship with God, your relationships with other people, and even with your relationship with yourself.

What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven.

Art’s everything we hope life would be, a lot of times.

I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough in me to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.

It’s not an easy course. It’s not designed to be. We’re not here to get you in touch with your inner child.

Any artist, the work you do, if it’s a painting or if it’s a performance, you hope it translates to a common denominator with the people that they see something in their own life in there. Or they see something in somebody else’s life. That’s what’s fun about sharing art.

Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself.

Prejudice is a chain, it can hold you. If you prejudice, you can’t move, you keep prejudice for years. Never get nowhere with that.

You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.

When I was younger, I was testing myself and questioning everything, but now it’s less about that and more about these are the years of my life with my family.

I think the idea of art kills creativity.

Right now, when we’re hearing so much disturbing and hateful rhetoric, it is so important to remember that our diversity has been – and will always be – our greatest source of strength and pride here in the United States.

There is only one failure in life possible, and that is not to be true to the best one knows.

Now I am older, I understand we have to accept who we are.

We acquire the strength we have overcome.

I had a period in my life where I decided that I would never be bored again and that, if I had any free time at all, I would make plans, and I would always be doing things. It actually was great for a year or so, but then I lost all of my friends.

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

Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself. But mankind wasn’t always so lucky. Less than a century ago, men and women did not have easy access to the puzzle boxes within them.