I liked to write from the time I was about 12 or 13. I loved to read. And since I only spoke to my brother, I would write down my thoughts. And I think I wrote some of the worst poetry west of the Rockies. But by the time I was in my 20s, I found myself writing little essays and more poetry – writing at writing.

It’s so tedious writing cookbooks or writing the recipes because I’ve never been much of a measurer. But to write a book, you have to measure everything.

You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.

My thing is this; if I’m sick enough to think it, then I’m sick enough to say it.

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.

No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline.

We identify in our experience a differentiation between what we do and what happens to us.

A word after a word after a word is power.

Music will never go away, and I will never stop making music; it’s just what capacity or what arena you decide to do it.

I’m not very ambitious at all.

My father… removed from Kentucky to… Indiana, in my eighth year… It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up… Of course when I came of age, I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher… but that was all.

Mysterious love, uncertain treasure, hast thou more of pain or pleasure! Endless torments dwell about thee: Yet who would live, and live without thee!

It’s insane that, since the Beatles and Dylan, it’s assumed that all musicians should do everything themselves. It’s that ridiculous, teenage idea that when Mick Jagger sings, he’s telling you something about his own life. It’s so arrogant to think that people would want to know about it anyway!

Football (soccer) is a matter of life and death, except more important.

Nobody can ever say that being negative ever helped them at all – not in any way.

It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody.

Well, I don’t think there’s any need for people to focus on my career.

I just want to be just as everyone else. I want to educate myself and be just like a normal teenager.

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

I wrote a few children’s books… not on purpose.

The child in you, like all children, loves to laugh, to be around people who can laugh at themselves and life. Children instinctively know that the more laughter we have in our lives, the better.

Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.

High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.

An author writes a book, and that’s the book at that point. And if the author writes the book again, then somehow something has gone wrong, if you see what I mean.

Whatever you dwell on in the conscious grows in your experience.

I only type every third night. I have no plan. My mind is a blank. I sit down. The typewriter gives me things I don’t even know I’m working on. It’s a free lunch. A free dinner. I don’t know how long it is going to continue, but so far there is nothing easier than writing.

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.

The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get.

I have trouble reading modern Hebrew. In the 1950s, I could read anything. I don’t know how much experience you’ve had with contemporary Hebrew. It’s quite difficult.

I’m first and foremost a writer. I followed my personal legend, my childhood dream of becoming a writer, but I can’t say why I’m one.

I didn’t live at school, I lived where I could and studied what I enjoyed studying. I took what I wanted from that education but was making my first record at the same time. I don’t know anyone from school. I was just leading a different life. I was really interested in writing and other things.

I tried acting, liked it, and stuck with it. I saw it as the way I would keep that promise to myself of getting back at those who had made my school life a misery.

I always wrote poetry and stuff like that, so putting songs together wasn’t that spectacular.

You’re always learning. The problem is, sometimes you stop and think you understand the world. This is not correct. The world is always moving. You never reach the point you can stop making an effort.

It seemed like a very small possibility for me to become an artist. I didn’t have the need to be on the stage; I didn’t feel the need to be heard. I just needed to write.

Each time we cooperate with God, we take one more giant step forward. Because when God asks us to change, it means that He always has something better to give us – more freedom, greater joy, and greater blessings.

When people are around us, they should leave better off than they were previously. Rather than feeling discouraged or defeated, people should feel challenged and inspired after spending any time with you and me.

Write injuries in dust, benefits in marble.

No poet or orator has ever existed who believed there was any better than himself.

When you seek the presence of your creative Spirit and are filled with passion about virtually everything you undertake, you’ll successfully remove the roadblocks from your life and enjoy the active presence of Spirit.

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.

Let each become all that he was created capable of being.

Writing is fun – at least mostly. I write for four hours every day. After that I go running. As a rule, 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). That’s easy to manage.

If I am a cup maker, I’m interested in making the best cup I possibly can. My effort goes into that cup, not what people think about it.

I really have no interest in myself.

Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.

I like my body when it is with your body. It is so quite new a thing. Muscles better and nerves more.

People want to know why I do this, why I write such gross stuff. I like to tell them I have the heart of a small boy… and I keep it in a jar on my desk.

A book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us.

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.

I have goals.

Freedom means you are unobstructed in living your life as you choose. Anything less is a form of slavery.

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars – mere globs of gas atoms. I, too, can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more?

Ultimately, I’m not doing that much. I’m only doing what a human being who feels wants to do – in my way, without stepping out of my flow, while staying in my lane. Without, I guess, boring people.

I am who I am and I say what I think. I’m not putting a face on for the record.

If you’re a surfer, you just want to surf. You don’t know if anyone’s going to see you, and you don’t really care if they see you. You just live for that feeling.

When I write, when I’m going hot, I don’t want to write more than four hours in a row. After that, you’re pushing it.

Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.

Even if you have nothing to write, write and say so.

In 7th grade, I believe, I wrote my first rap song. It was about everything I was seeing, everything that was going on around me.

As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.