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 tell everybody, I get so much because I give so much. I give freely, I give all my time, give all my money, give all of my soul. I try to motivate people. I try to inspire them.

Music is always a commentary on society.

I always seem to get inspiration and renewed vitality by contact with this great novel land of yours which sticks up out of the Atlantic.

A lot of the stuff I do in terms of PR, I learned it from Muhammad Ali.

I think I don’t take myself too seriously. You know as far as, it’s a fun life. I take my music serious, but I like to have fun.

It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.

Many times, we miss out on God’s best because we give up too soon. We don’t realize how close we are to victory.

And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see – or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read.

Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to conceive.

The sun is gone, but I have a light.

Always have something beautiful in sight, even if it’s just a daisy in a jelly glass.

I can relax with bums because I am a bum. I don’t like laws, morals, religions, rules. I don’t like to be shaped by society.

Personality is everything in art and poetry.

People have to go through trials and tribulations to get where they at. Do your thing – continue to rock it – because obviously, God wants you here.

My family has very strong women. My mother never laughed at my dream of Africa, even though everyone else did because we didn’t have any money, because Africa was the ‚dark continent‘, and because I was a girl.

Music can change the world because it can change people.

The truth is, I had always wanted to be a comedian, but I really didn’t have that kind of personality, and it’s a terrifying thing to say.

By the sole fact of his entering into ‚Thought,‘ man represents something entirely singular and absolutely unique in the field of our experience. On a single planet, there could not be more than one centre of emergence for reflexion.

I myself have been on my own and utterly independent since I graduated. I haven’t belonged to any company or any system. It isn’t easy to live like this in Japan.

I have met 18 million youth, and each wants to be unique.

My dad always said, ‚Champ, the measure of a man is not how often he is knocked down, but how quickly he gets up.‘

I would drive to gigs in my tiny little Fiat. I would shoot up and down the M1 to play at various places.

Work aside, we come to New York for the possibility of interaction and inspiration.

America is the student who defies the odds to become the first in a family to go to college – the citizen who defies the cynics and goes out there and votes – the young person who comes out of the shadows to demand the right to dream. That’s what America is about.

Don’t try to be like Jackie. There is only one Jackie. Study computers instead.

I love to play. And fortunately, I don’t know a lot of musicians that suck. I know a bunch of really good ones, and they’re always up for playing.

What I’ve discovered is that in art, as in music, there’s a lot of truth-and then there’s a lie. The artist is essentially creating his work to make this lie a truth, but he slides it in amongst all the others. The tiny little lie is the moment I live for, my moment. It’s the moment that the audience falls in love.

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.

I’ve always done whatever I want and always been exactly who I am.

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.

The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.

My entire childhood was steeped in poverty. For me, poverty, in a way, was the first inspiration of my life, a commitment to do something for the poor.

Personally, I think the best motto for an educational establishment is: ‚Or Would You Rather Be a Mule?‘

I can honestly say – and it’s a big surprise to me – that I have never had a dream about being on the moon.

Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake?

I’m not a supermodel. That’s not what I do. What I do is music. I want my fans to feel the way I do, to know what they have to offer is just as important, more important, than what’s happening on the outside.

I don’t intend to stop making music.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

If I could write directly on a typewriter or a computer, I would do it. But keyboards have always intimidated me. I’ve never been able to think clearly with my fingers in that position. A pen is a much more primitive instrument. You feel that the words are coming out of your body and then you dig the words into the page.

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.

In 1995, I was diagnosed with cancer, and I had to practice what I preached. I had always said to ‚believe in God‘ and ‚don’t give up‘ to little kids who had been diagnosed with cancer. I then thought if I can’t call on that same God and same strength that I told people about, I would be a liar and a phony.

Man becomes his most creative during war.

I look like a woman, but I think like a man.

You can’t do it unless you can imagine it.

I’m different than most people. When I cross the finish line of a big race, I see that people are ecstatic, but I’m thinking about what I’m going to do tomorrow. It’s as if my journey is everlasting, and there is no finish line.

I try to devote my afternoons to making music in my home studio, but it’s a lot more fun hanging out with musicians and friends, and trying subtly to influence a band than making your own stuff.

There weren’t a lot of career opportunities in crazy-fast hardcore punk, so you didn’t have a lot of ambition, just the love and passion to play music with your friends.

One of my most popular songs, ‚Satellites,‘ I paid $300 for that beat on SoundClick.

I feel connected to my generation through the music, but I also fear for us. We’re in a very self-destructive state where we’re addicted to outside opinions and we all feel like we have fans.

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.

What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you?

Someday I want to have children and give them all the love I never had.

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

Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.

Writing music is just like writing a book.

Billy Graham is one of my great lifetime heroes. I think he epitomizes the essence of what a Christian leader should be. I have participated in some of his crusades a couple of times in Atlanta. I’ve seen the profound impact he’s had on me personally, and on other people who were not Christians and accepted Christ as Savior.

Never regret what you don’t write.

I hope that people around the world will be as inspired as I am to step up and to speak out on behalf of girls around the world who struggle to go to school.

What did I owe the rest of the world? Nothing.

When a person starts to talk about their dreams, it’s as if something bubbles up from within. Their eyes brighten, their face glows, and you can feel the excitement in their words.