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

I suppose for me as an artist it wasn’t always just about expressing my work; I really wanted, more than anything else, to contribute in some way to the culture that I was living in. It just seemed like a challenge to move it a little bit towards the way I thought it might be interesting to go.

I’ve never thought about songwriting as a weapon. I’ve only thought about it as a way to help me get through love and loss and sadness and loneliness and growing up.

Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.

Writing and cafes are strongly linked in my brain.

I definitely wasn’t anything special when I first started but I think I adapted quite quickly into racing and it became a bit better slowly. All of cadets, the first four years of karting, I only won one proper race, one! Which was the British Open Championship at PFI and I started 21st and I won.

There are alway going to be bad things. But you can write it down and make a song out of it.

One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity.

You do things when the opportunities come along. I’ve had periods in my life when I’ve had a bundle of ideas come along, and I’ve had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I’ll do something. If not, I won’t do a damn thing.

It’s a curse. I ask God to take this away from me all the time. I do not like being an artist.

If you can be mentally stimulated by the workout and find out how to get through it, it’s more fun.

The music we do is for people to enjoy, dance and sing to it. Dreamers – keep on dreaming and keep working hard to achieve your goals. There are many difficulties, but what matters is to stay focused and have perseverance.

Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory.

Inspiration is hard to come by. You have to take it where you find it.

An unimaginative person can neither be reverent or kind.

Imagination rules the world.

I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.

When you are a beginning film maker you are desperate to survive. The most important thing in the end is survival and being able to get to your next picture.

The only way of catching a train I have ever discovered is to miss the train before.

I know you’ve heard it a thousand times before. But it’s true – hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don’t love something, then don’t do it.

A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.

This is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.

We should not give up and we should not allow the problem to defeat us.

I have to practice to be good at guitar. I have to write 100 songs before you write the first good one.

As a songwriter, you respect and appreciate the writings of other people, and I often get asked, are there songs out there I wish I’d written? Yes. There’s many of them!

‚For Whom the Bell Tolls‘ was a problem which I carried on each day. I knew what was going to happen in principle. But I invented what happened each day I wrote.

The longer a man’s fame is likely to last, the longer it will be in coming.

Fiction is based on reality unless you’re a fairytale artist.

When I was performing the songs on ‚Kiss Land,‘ it was a great singalong. But there were moments where I realized some parts were catchier than the others. There’s maybe two choruses on all of ‚Kiss Land.‘

We combat obstacles in order to get repose, and when got, the repose is insupportable.

Anything you put your mind to and add your imagination into can make your life a lot better and a lot more fun.

I don’t want to be something that just comes and goes.

Great is the power of habit. It teaches us to bear fatigue and to despise wounds and pain.

Whatever you want to do, do with full passion and work really hard towards it. Don’t look anywhere else. There will be a few distractions, but if you can be true to yourself, you will be successful for sure.

Perhaps it’s good for one to suffer. Can an artist do anything if he’s happy? Would he ever want to do anything? What is art, after all, but a protest against the horrible inclemency of life?

Every collaboration helps you grow. With Bowie, it’s different every time. I know how to create settings, unusual aural environments. That inspires him. He’s very quick.

Even the securest financial plan and the finest health coverage aren’t enough to hold us steady when the challenges come… We need something more, something deeper and unshakeable, something that will see us through life’s hard times.

A lot of my rhymes are just to get chuckles out of people. Anybody with half a brain is going to be able to tell when I’m joking and when I’m serious.

I would have a workshop attached to every school, and one hour a day given up to the teaching of simple decorative arts. It would be a golden hour to the children.

Let a man who has to make his fortune in life remember this maxim: Attacking is the only secret. Dare and the world yields, or if it beats you sometimes, dare it again and you will succeed.

Dancers are always striving for perfection. A great dancer never achieves it: you always want to do another turn, a higher jump,a more difficult acrobatic jump.

Like a pianist runs her fingers over the keys, I’ll search my mind for what to say. Now, the poem may want you to write it. And then sometimes you see a situation and think, ‚I’d like to write about that.‘ Those are two different ways of being approached by a poem, or approaching a poem.

If you play an instrument, it makes you a better singer. The more you play, the better you sing, the more you sing, the better you play.

This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.

Making music is like shopping for me. Every song is like a new pair of shoes.

Every artist preserves deep within him a single source from which, throughout his lifetime, he draws what he is, and what he says. When the source dries up, the work withers and crumbles.

I do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by married men.

Why did I become Jackie Chan? Mostly because I work very hard. When people were sleeping, I was still training.

Your attitude towards failure determines your altitude after failure.

At Microsoft there are lots of brilliant ideas but the image is that they all come from the top – I’m afraid that’s not quite right.

I think we’re going to the moon because it’s in the nature of the human being to face challenges. It’s by the nature of his deep inner soul… we’re required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream.

Songwriters, you have to work – you have to wait for residuals. You have to pray that the song’s going to be a hit. And then a year later, you might get a check.

Effective philanthropy requires a lot of time and creativity – the same kind of focus and skills that building a business requires.

The man who has the will to undergo all labor may win to any good.

Lot of players lose hope because of lack of motivation.

When I’m inspired, I get excited because I can’t wait to see what I’ll come up with next.

What one has, one ought to use: and whatever he does he should do with all his might.

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

He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.

Everybody born comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. We come from the Creator with creativity. I think that each one of us is born with creativity.

Imagination is a poor matter when it has to part company with understanding.