If I wish to compose or write or pray or preach well, I must be angry. Then all the blood in my veins is stirred, and my understanding is sharpened.

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.

We don’t make music – it makes us.

Masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice.

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

Everything that’s created comes out of silence. Your thoughts emerge from the nothingness of silence. Your words come out of this void. Your very essence emerged from emptiness. All creativity requires some stillness.

When you begin to worry, go find something to do. Get busy being a blessing to someone; do something fruitful. Talking about your problem or sitting alone, thinking about it, does no good; it serves only to make you miserable. Above all else, remember that worrying is totally useless. Worrying will not solve your problem.

Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.

I have so many designs and video ideas and lyrics in my head, so I always try to be productive.

Effective philanthropy requires a lot of time and creativity – the same kind of focus and skills that building a business requires.

It’s true that at the time I was fond of Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan, and it was from them that I learned about this kind of simple, swift-paced style, but the main reason for the style of my first novel is that I simply did not have the time to write sustained prose.

Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.

No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty.

I have to write because if I don’t get something down then after a while I feel it’s going to bang the side of my head off.

With drive and a bit of talent, you can move mountains. I know. I’ve done it.

Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.

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

To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.

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.

Every movie I make teaches me something. That’s why I keep making them.

What is true of the individual will be tomorrow true of the whole nation if individuals will but refuse to lose heart and hope.

Loving others always costs us something and requires effort. And you have to decide to do it on purpose. You can’t wait for a feeling to motivate you.

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.

Don’t find fault, find a remedy.

Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity.

Fiction is based on reality unless you’re a fairytale artist.

If you are full of motivation as a player, if you are full of concentration, I am open arms.

Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory.

No man ever achieved worth-while success who did not, at one time or other, find himself with at least one foot hanging well over the brink of failure.

Humor has bailed me out of more tight situations than I can think of. If you go with your instincts and keep your humor, creativity follows. With luck, success comes, too.

I write all my sermons.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

A good indignation brings out all one’s powers.

Free people, remember this maxim: we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost.

Writing has always had that tactile quality for me. It’s a physical experience.

I thought it was magic to be able to catch something identically on tape and then be able to play around with it, run it backwards; I thought that was great for years.

A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.

Do what nobody else can do for you. Omit to do anything else.

A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.

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

I am a professional sportswriter, among other things, and I take the games seriously. It is only one of my many powerful addictions, and I don’t mind admitting any of them.

Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.

Zappa was very technical and impressed by things that were musically challenging – weird time signatures, strange keys, awkward chord sequences. Zappa was important to me as an example of everything I didn’t want to do. I’m very grateful to him, actually.

I don’t do research. I never have.

Arrange whatever pieces come your way.

You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.

Anytime I feel lost, I pull out a map and stare. I stare until I have reminded myself that life is a giant adventure, so much to do, to see.

Read the Bible. Work hard and honestly. And don’t complain.

Most rock journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, for people who can’t read.

Whenever death may surprise us, let it be welcome if our battle cry has reached even one receptive ear and another hand reaches out to take up our arms.

We clearly see in God’s Word that anything He tells us to do, He will give us the ability to do it. But do we really believe it? Do we want to believe it? It’s easier to come up with excuses for why we can’t do things that are hard or that we really don’t want to do.

The wicked leader is he who the people despise. The good leader is he who the people revere. The great leader is he who the people say, ‚We did it ourselves.‘

He that can have patience can have what he will.

I am only an average man but, by George, I work harder at it than the average man.

See, when you drive home today, you’ve got a big windshield on the front of your car. And you’ve got a little bitty rearview mirror. And the reason the windshield is so large and the rearview mirror is so small is because what’s happened in your past is not near as important as what’s in your future.

Love is the answer to everything. It’s the only reason to do anything. If you don’t write stories you love, you’ll never make it. If you don’t write stories that other people love, you’ll never make it.

My production and songwriting and the environment around those vocals are not inspired by R&B at all.

Man is only great when he acts from passion.