I like nonsense; it wakes up the brain cells.

Every man is a creative cause of what happens, a primum mobile with an original movement.

‚The Lion‘ all began with a picture of a faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself, ‚Let’s try to make a story about it.‘

I got a greater purpose. God put something in my heart to get across, and that’s what I’m going to focus on, using my voice as an instrument and doing what needs to be done.

It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.

Scientists have to have a metaphor. All scientists start with imagination.

Jane Austen is the pinnacle to which all other authors aspire.

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.

Water is the driving force of all nature.

In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.

You ask me if I keep a notebook to record my great ideas. I’ve only ever had one.

God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us, on this side of the grave.

Everywhere I go I find that people… both leaders and individuals… are asking one basic question, ‚Is there any hope for the future?‘ My answer is the same, ‚Yes, through Jesus Christ.‘

Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pocket. But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past.

When I checked into SEAL Team One many years ago, one of the things that I noticed was there was this old guy, who was younger than I am today, who I decided that I was going to be like. I wanted to emulate what he was doing, and one of those things was he got to work before anybody else.

The biggest problem with every art is by the use of appearance to create a loftier reality.

In writing, I apply my feminine side and respect the mystery involved in creation.

I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.

When I write, I write about my surroundings. Sometimes it’s light, and sometimes it gets very dark.

Dreams are the touchstones of our character.

The book is not really the container for the book. The book itself is the narrative. It’s the thing that people create.

I try to really capitalize off of what other rappers really can’t do. There are opportunities that rappers I love simply can’t get, because… you know… I don’t have the tattoos; I have a different image.

Aim for the highest.

I used to like to set different film clips to classical music, not even my own songs, but make little movies.

With a tree, all the growth takes place at the growing tips. Humanity is exactly the same. All the growth takes place in the growing tip: among that one percent of the population. It’s made up of pioneers, the beginners. That’s where the action is.

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

When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That’s when you can get more creative in solving problems.

Around every corner, always protect the engine that powers you.

Being a hero is about the shortest-lived profession on earth.

I see drawings and pictures in the poorest of huts and the dirtiest of corners.

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

Life’s a fight. It’s a good fight of faith.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

When your dream is bigger than you are, you only have two choices: give up or get help.

I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.

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

Sports are basically our way of feeling sorry for ourselves. Most men can’t become athletes. We’re watching guys who actually made it. We see them dunking and making touchdowns. Then we think about ourselves when we were younger.

We live in a culture that relishes tearing others down. It’s ultimately more fulfilling, though, to help people reach their goals. Instead of feeling jealous, remember: If God did it for them, He can do it for you.

Every artist wants something different out the game.

The spirit is there in every boy; it has to be discovered and brought to light.

When you revolutionize education, you’re taking the very mechanism of how people be smarter and do new things, and you’re priming the pump for so many incredible things.

People like Frank Zappa and Bryan Ferry knew we could pick and choose from the history of music, stick things together looking for friction and energy. They were more like playwrights; they invented characters and wrote a life around them.

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.

I think sometimes – not always – I write songs that are accessible.

I used to consider the listener. But now I’m in a space where, if I’m not inspired, I can’t really do the music. I can’t feel it.

I dwell in possibility.

My kind of composing is more like the work of a gardener. The gardener takes his seeds and scatters them, knowing what he is planting but not quite what will grow where and when – and he won’t necessarily be able to reproduce it again afterwards either.

Innovation has nothing to do with how many R & D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R & D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.

I think a role model is a mentor – someone you see on a daily basis, and you learn from them.

The writing process, the way I go about it is I do whatever the beat feels like, whatever the beat is telling me to do. Usually when the beat comes on, I think of a hook or the subject I want to rap about almost instantly. Within four, eight bars of it playing I’m just like, ‚Oh, OK. This is what I wanna do‘.

I’m not one icon. I’m every icon. I’m an icon that is made out of all the colors on the palette at every time. I have no restrictions. No restrictions.

If you are going to write, say, fantasy – stop reading fantasy. You’ve already read too much. Read other things; read westerns, read history, read anything that seems interesting, because if you only read fantasy and then you start to write fantasy, all you’re going to do is recycle the same old stuff and move it around a bit.

There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.

When you are organizing a group of people, the first thing that we do is we talk about the history of what other people have been able to accomplish – people that look like them, workers like them, ordinary people, working people – and we give them the list: these are people like yourself; this is what they were able to do in their community.

I never experiment with anything in my books. Experimentation means you don’t know what you’re doing.

Step with care and great tact, and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act.

You can’t die with an unfinished book.

I’d like to think you don’t stop being creative once you get happy. My ultimate goal is to end up being happy. Most of the time.

I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name.

I have trouble imagining what I could do that’s beyond the practicality of what I can do.

People don’t care about what someone says about you in a movie – or even what you say, right? They care about what you build. And if you can make something that makes people’s life better, then that’s something that’s really good.