I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.

My whole life is a theater piece.

I was never particularly fond of my voice.

You cannot see the changes that you’re dreaming about, because they’re internal.

It’s all make believe, isn’t it?

Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.

There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man’s lack of faith in his true Self.

I have total recall. I remember being born. I remember being in the womb, I remember being inside. Coming out was great.

I have offended God and mankind because my work didn’t reach the quality it should have.

Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.

Sometimes, you might meet somebody that you love that’s turning into a ‚they.‘ My key is invite them to Miami and take them to the ocean and let them jump off the boat in the ocean, on the sand bar, and cleanse off and pray and then go take a shower, and hopefully the ‚they‘ is out of you.

Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity.

I think my biggest musical hero growing up was probably Ian MacKaye. He set a great example for all of us local musicians. Still, to this day, I see him as the best example of a right-on musician.

I can’t consciously explain how people feel after reading my books. All is too personal.

What it’s like to be me? You know, it’s good to be me. My life is good.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

Kitty Wells was the first and only Queen of Country Music, no matter what they call the rest of us. She was a great inspiration to me as well as every other female singer in the country music business. In addition to being a wonderful asset to country music, she was a wonderful woman.

Art! Who comprehends her? With whom can one consult concerning this great goddess?

The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one’s appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship.

It’s absolutely normal that different human beings want to go different ways.

If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.

Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.

Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.

What’s really hard is that you could care a lot for someone and not want to live with him anymore.

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

The good part about youngsters is that they are so fearless. You want to be like them.

The concept of commercialism in the fashion and art world is looked down upon. You know, just to think, ‚What amount of creativity does it take to make something that masses of people like?‘ And, ‚How does creativity apply across the board?‘

When you are discontent, you always want more, more, more. Your desire can never be satisfied. But when you practice contentment, you can say to yourself, ‚Oh yes – I already have everything that I really need.‘

Some people would like me to be round again.

Within us there is someone who knows everything, wills everything, does everything better than we ourselves.

The hope, the hope that lives in the breast of the black American, is just so tremendous that it overwhelms me sometimes.

There’s an effort to reclaim the unmentionable, the unsayable, the unspeakable, all those things come into being a composer, into writing music, into searching for notes and pieces of musical information that don’t exist.

To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.

There are half a dozen subjects that I return to time and time again, and that doesn’t bother me. Because most of my favorite writers do that, to hunt down the same topic or theme from different directions each time.

I think, when you are growing up, you have to pull apart from what your mother wants or needs. You’ve got to go your own way, and that’s what I did.

I had wanted a tape recorder since I was tiny. I thought it was a magic thing. I never got one until just before I went to art school.

You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway.

I was in a queer mood, thinking myself very old: but now I am a woman again – as I always am when I write.

All of our problems start in our minds.

A man will turn over half a library to make one book.

I can simply tell you that since I was a kid, I didn’t like to look like anyone else.

I’ve never gotten thick skin. If you close yourself off and you get this protective armor, there is a price you pay with that – of not feeling. And feeling is important when you are a songwriter.

To me, the most important artists in my career are Arcangel and Balvin. Arcangel gave me the push, the respect in the streets.

My mother did not like children.

A bad book is as much of a labor to write as a good one, it comes as sincerely from the author’s soul.

I’m very aware and very conscious of the path I chose in life, and very aware of the path I didn’t choose.

Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.

Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.

The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.

All I can do is try to create my own brand and have people appreciate me for that.

A novel is a work of poetry. In order to write it, one must have tranquility of spirit and of impression.

If you are lonely when you’re alone, you are in bad company.

The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.

Begin noticing and being careful about keeping your imagination free of thoughts that you do not wish to materialize. Instead, initiate a practice of filling your creative thoughts to overflow with ideas and wishes that you fully intend to manifest. Honor your imaginings regardless of others seeing them as crazy or impossible.

If an idea isn’t exciting, you shouldn’t do it.

In all seriousness, people think that it’s the ideas that are important. Well, everyone has ideas, all the time. I tend to write mine down and remember them, but at some point you have to apply the bum to the seat and knock out about sixty five thousand words – that’s how long a novel is.

Good ideas are free – or at least they should be.

A woman has the age she deserves.

I don’t think there’s such a thing as autobiographical fiction. If I say it happened, it happened, even if only in my mind.

Pretension is a poor joke that you play on yourself. Snap out of it. Recognise your strengths, work on your weaknesses. Real achievement is liking what you see in the mirror every morning.

We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society.