I want to thank my Eritrean fans for feeling connected to me and for supporting me. I feel extremely grateful.

I believe everyone should have a good death. You know, with your grandchildren around you, a bit of sobbing. Because after all, tears are appropriate on a death bed. And you say goodbye to your loved ones, making certain that one of them has been left behind to look after the shop.

I love being American, and I love family. I love having a family, and I feel so blessed, and I feel like God gave me exactly what I wanted, so now I have to do the right thing in God’s eyes also. Just follow what God wants me to do.

I just owe almost everything to my father and it’s passionately interesting for me that the things that I learned in a small town, in a very modest home, are just the things that I believe have won the election.

An employer of mine back in the ’80s was kind enough to take me on after a rough patch, and it made a big difference in my life that I knew I was the sort of person who showed up on time. It’s a basic tell of character.

Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf.

A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants.

He didn’t come out of my belly, but my God, I’ve made his bones, because I’ve attended to every meal, and how he sleeps, and the fact that he swims like a fish because I took him to the ocean. I’m so proud of all those things. But he is my biggest pride.

It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.

When I joined Nirvana, I was the fifth or sixth drummer – I don’t know if they’d ever had a drummer they were totally happy with. And they were strangers. There was never much of a deeper connection outside of the music.

When I got to New York City when I was 18, I started playing in clubs in Brooklyn – I have good friends and devoted fans on the underground scene, but we were playing for each other at that point – and that was it.

I am grateful to be a woman. I must have done something great in another life.

My friends, no matter how rough the road may be, we can and we will, never, never surrender to what is right.

A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better.

My mother never cursed at home; my father never cursed at home. My father didn’t drink. Even though we were poor, we would say a blessing over the table. So that’s who I am.

Pride is an independent, me-oriented spirit. It makes people arrogant, rude and hard to get along with. When our heart is prideful, we don’t give God the credit and we mistreat people, looking down on them and thinking we deserve what we have.

If you can feel that Mother Earth is in you, and you are Mother Earth, then you are not any longer afraid to die because the earth is not dying. Like a wave appears and disappears and appears again.

Fill the earth with your songs of gratitude.

It’s always wonderful to get to know women, with the mystery and the joy and the depth. If you can make a woman laugh, you’re seeing the most beautiful thing on God’s Earth.

It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.

Fans are my favorite thing in the world. I’ve never been the type of artist who has that line drawn between their friends and their fans. The line’s always been really blurred for me. I’ll hang out with them after the show. I’ll hang out with them before the show. If I see them in the mall, I’ll stand there and talk to them for 10 minutes.

We don’t thrive on military acts. We do them because we have to, and thank God we are efficient.

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined – to strengthen each other – to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories.

I don’t have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness – it’s right in front of me if I’m paying attention and practicing gratitude.

I want my fans to love themselves. It’s almost like I want to hypnotize them so when they hear my music they love themselves instantly.

It seems that when you have cancer you are a brave battler against the disease, but when you have Alzheimer’s you are an old fart. That’s how people see you. It makes you feel quite alone.

There’s people that appreciate what I do; there’s people that criticize it.

The ultimate connection is when you are connected to the creator of the universe.

I’ve never dropped anyone I believed in.

Next to excellence is the appreciation of it.

A man makes you feel important – makes you glad you are a woman.

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.

I have nothing to ask but that you would remove to the other side, that you may not, by intercepting the sunshine, take from me what you cannot give.

A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same.

Happiness is within the reach of everyone, rich or poor. Yet comparatively few people are happy. I believe the reason for this is that the majority don’t recognize happiness even when it is within their grasp.

A friend is one soul abiding in two bodies.

However great may be the work for which we are responsible, we will always do well if we pause to spend time in sacred praise.

I heard that when Christina Aguilera went back to her prom, people, like, booed her. I can’t imagine going through that. If you know that’s going to happen, why put yourself in that situation? I’d rather play for 20,000 screaming people, you know?

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.

It’s true my father abused me and didn’t love and protect me the way he should have, and at times it seemed no one would ever help me and it would never end. But God always had a plan for my life, and He has redeemed me.

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.

When you’re a pop star, it’s a little conservative; you always have to stay in a box. You have fans that are five and fans that are 65; there are so many people wanting so many things.

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.

It’s rare for a startup to make money immediately, so you need to make sure that you have enough saved or that you have another income stream that can support you.

I love those who do not know how to live for today.

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.

If it’s good music, it’s good music.

My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.

I support Real Madrid. I’m a big fan of Cristiano Ronaldo.

No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.

To be treated well in places where you don’t expect to be treated well, to find things in common with people you thought previously you had very, very little in common with, that can’t be a bad thing.

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.

A person who can’t pay gets another person who can’t pay to guarantee that he can pay. Like a person with two wooden legs getting another person with two wooden legs to guarantee that he has got two natural legs. It don’t make either of them able to do a walking-match.

All my adult life people have been helping me.

You can’t have everything. Where would you put it?

My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.

I miss people. I miss going anywhere and meeting a random person and saying ‚Hi‘ and having a conversation about life. I love people.

It’s hard knowing who to trust with your personal life. When you cry in your room at night, you don’t always know who to call. So I am very close to my family.

Next to God we are nothing. To God we are Everything.