I think music is something that can, and should, be used to get you into different things because eventually what goes up must come down – we’re not going to be the number one group in the world forever – so you have to have something else to fall back on.

Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved.

Dream and you shall become.

Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.

I think maybe people see bands and musicians as some sort of superhero unrealistic sport that happens in another dimension where it’s not real people and not real emotions. So, I grew up listening to Beatles records on my floor. That’s how I learned how to play guitar. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be a musician.

Action may not bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.

My mother and my father have been married 50 years, and he’s just started to understand that something’s wrong with the system. He accepted the whole thing, you see. Yet this industrious kind of engagement didn’t bring him the success, according to American terms, that he wanted. I was probably affected by this very much. In fact, I know I was.

I wish I could make music about politics. I feel like it’s such an art and a talent that I admire tremendously, but when I step into the studio, I step out of the real world, and it’s therapeutic.

Yes, the Bible should be taught in our schools because it is necessary to understand the Bible if we are to truly understand our own culture and how it came to be. The Bible has influenced every part of western culture from our art, music, and history, to our sense of fairness, charity, and business.

Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.

If you want to thrive in today’s economy, you must challenge the status quo and get the financial education necessary to succeed.

It’s not necessary to fear the prospect of failure but to be determined not to fail.

Endurance is patience concentrated.

You have to come to your closed doors before you get to your open doors… What if you knew you had to go through 32 closed doors before you got to your open door? Well, then you’d come to closed door number eight and you’d think, ‚Great, I got another one out of the way’… Keep moving forward.

I enjoy acting when you really hit it right.

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.

Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.

A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.

You know, not to sound corny or nuthin‘, but I felt like a fighter comin‘ up, man. I felt like, you know, I’m being attacked for this reason or that reason, and I gotta fight my way through this.

Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the highroad to pride, self-esteem, and personal satisfaction.

To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.

He shines in the second rank, who is eclipsed in the first.

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.

It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.

Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

If your treat an individual… as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.

A leader is a dealer in hope.

That’s why I hate to get started in these jam sessions. I’m always the last one to leave.

Will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? And the rest of you, if you’ll just rattle your jewelry.

I treated it like every day was my last day with a basketball.

Television sounded really different than the Ramones sounded really different than us sounded really different than Blondie sounded really different than the Sex Pistols.

I know a lot of people say they always believed they could get into F1, but I didn’t quite believe that, certainly not when I was 7 and maybe not until I was 14. It was always so far away.

If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.

Sitting on a bedroom floor crying is something that makes you feel really alone. If someone’s singing about that feeling, you feel bonded to that person.

I was always interested – I mean, it’s kind of part of your job – I was always interested in the camera.

I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.

Music is the art of the prophets and the gift of God.

When something an affliction happens to you, you either let it defeat you, or you defeat it.

I didn’t have to win, and winning wasn’t important to me. Being world champion wasn’t important to me. What was important to me was entertaining the audience, and whether that meant winning, losing, singing, or whatever it was on the live show we were doing every week, which was awesome, I was game for it.

I go to assume a task more difficult than that which devolved upon Washington. Unless the great God, who assisted him, shall be with me and aid me, I must fail; but if the same omniscient mind and almighty arm that directed and protected him shall guide and support me, I shall not fail – I shall succeed.

Music is this divine thing, the closest that we can get to something divine. It’s like this instinct we all own, and some of us have found a way to hear that music and write it down and share it with people.

Certainly it is valuable to a trained writer to crash in an aircraft which burns. He learns several important things very quickly. Whether they will be of use to him is conditioned by survival. Survival, with honor, that outmoded and all-important word, is as difficult as ever and as all-important to a writer.

All my momma’s people were very musical. My grandpa, who was the Pentecostal minister, he was a great musician. He played the fiddle, he played the piano.

I’m definitely gaining new fans, and that’s the key of any success… gain more love.

Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly.

If you’re going through hell, keep going.

There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.

I love being in a courtroom.

In soloing – as in other activities – it is far easier to start something than it is to finish it.

Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.

Most of the stuff I do on the show comes out of me just trying to make my friends laugh.

When I was born, that was the music my mother was listening to. Michael Jackson is a third parent to me.

The point about melody and beat and lyric is that they exist to engage you in a very particular way. They want to occupy your attention.

What really motivates people at Facebook is building something that’s worthwhile, that they’re going to be proud to show to friends and family.

We all face storms in life. Some are more difficult than others, but we all go through trials and tribulation. That’s why we have the gift of faith.

A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.

Everything is my demon muse. I have a muse which whispers in my ear and says, ‚Do this, do that,‘ but it’s my demon who provokes me.

As a kid from Compton, you can get all the success in the world and still question your worth.

Those movies sure got me into a rut.

He that lives upon hope will die fasting.

The best luck of all is the luck you make for yourself.