If I’d had good discipline, I might have gone into music.

I booked my first studio at like 12 or 13. Somewhere in that season of my life, singing along with the radio became me wanting to be on radio, you know.

Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.

There is no person so severely punished, as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse.

Order is heaven’s first law.

However happy people say they are, nobody is satisfied: we always have to be with the prettiest woman, buy a bigger house, change cars, desire what we do not have.

I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.

A child who is allowed to be disrespectful to his parents will not have true respect for anyone.

I knew I’d be in the UFC since I started my career.

I can operate in half-a-song format.

Having unlimited choices can paralyze you creatively.

You cannot push any one up a ladder unless he be willing to climb a little himself.

I like to combine the dramatic emotional warmth of strings with the grooves and body business of drums and bass.

When I’m writing a record, I kind of don’t listen to much music. Just because I want to be inspired solely on the emotion; just based on how it feels.

My parents had us in church every Sunday, every Wednesday. It was more of a tradition at that point; I didn’t have a personal relationship with the Lord until I went to the altar call one Sunday, and the youth pastor told us to make a decision for ourselves.

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

No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.

Do your duty and a little more and the future will take care of itself.

If you have the ability to pick yourself up by the bootstraps and start over, you come out stronger because you learn from whatever mistakes you made.

Searching for music is like searching for God. They’re very similar. There’s an effort to reclaim the unmentionable, the unsayable, the unseeable, the unspeakable, all those things, comes into being a composer and to writing music and to searching for notes and pieces of musical information that don’t exist.

Doing the box set is one of those things where you get to rewrite your own history to some extent. We could take out some of the songs that we felt weren’t as strong as some of the others, so you look better.

My education was the liberty I had to read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out.

Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity successful men act as though they have accomplished or are enjoying something. Soon it becomes a reality. Act, look, feel successful, conduct yourself accordingly, and you will be amazed at the positive results.

I think Clinton, after getting into office and into Washington, was shocked at being bludgeoned. So he spent time trying to be all things to all people – one way guaranteed not to be successful or respected in a lion’s den. You can’t just play around with all those big cats – you’ve got to take somebody on.

When you can whip any man in the world, you never know peace.

Since it is difficult to join them together, it is safer to be feared than to be loved when one of the two must be lacking.

The men who have succeeded are men who have chosen one line and stuck to it.

I’ve learned never to say never.

I would say that jazz is my own language.

I’m an iPod person.

I’d love it if everyone knew one Foo Fighters song.

Most of one’s life is one prolonged effort to prevent oneself thinking.

I myself have been on my own and utterly independent since I graduated. I haven’t belonged to any company or any system. It isn’t easy to live like this in Japan.

We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.

The pursuit, even of the best things, ought to be calm and tranquil.

A lot of people tell me a lot of things about my conduct, my game, my future… but I try to stay away from their words of wisdom. I don’t let it distract me. On the field, you will be facing the ball alone. If you fail, you will the only one to blame. So, you should be the one deciding for yourself.

I feel matured in a way that I’m happy about. I’m at this other stage in my life – and it’s not a bad thing at all.

God gave you a brain. Do the best you can with it. And you don’t have to be Einstein, but Einstein was mentally tough. He believed what he believed. And he worked out things. And he argued with people who disagreed with him. But I’m sure he didn’t call everybody jerks.

I am growing handsome very fast indeed! I expect I shall be the belle of Amherst when I reach my 17th year. I don’t doubt that I shall have perfect crowds of admirers at that age. Then how I shall delight to make them await my bidding, and with what delight shall I witness their suspense while I make my final decision.

We must be our own before we can be another’s.

Our greatest evils flow from ourselves.

Never give an order that can’t be obeyed.

If it weren’t for the Beatles, I would not be a musician.

I cannot with any real integrity perform songs I’ve done for 25 years. I don’t need the money. What I need is to feel that I am not letting myself down as an artist and that I still have something to contribute.

As a lifestyle you always being the focal point is innately unhealthy.

The fame isn’t important to me. It’s a blessing to have. Having so many people that support me, that love me and listen to my music, is beautiful.

What is common sense isn’t common practice.

When I had to make a decision whether or not an activity was appropriate for the Sabbath, I simply asked myself, ‚What sign do I want to give to God?‘ That question made my choices about the Sabbath day crystal clear.

We should purify our innate well of contentment – what a wonderful expression – and then external things will be in harmony with us.

‚Via Dolorosa‘ is the only thing I have ever acted in my life, professionally, and I’ll never act again.

Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it.

Every album, I make big records. I’m going to always make an anthem. That’s what I do.

Never find fault with the absent.

Whenever I think about movies, I always look at that art process as having the best of a lot of worlds. Because if you watch a great film, you have a musical element to it, not just on the scoring, but in the way that the shots are edited – that has music and rhythm and time.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the undecideds could go one way or another.

Never stop fighting until you arrive at your destined place – that is, the unique you. Have an aim in life, continuously acquire knowledge, work hard, and have perseverance to realise the great life.

However, there’s no theme or concept behind Heathen, just a number of songs but somehow there is a thread that runs through it that is quite as strong as any of my thematic type albums.

Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.

Had I pursued my education long enough to learn all the conventional dos and don’ts of starting a business, I often wonder how different my life and career might have been.

Resist the need to be ‚right‘ all the time or to always have the last word.

Warren Buffet told me once and he said always follow your gut. When you have that gut feeling, you have to go with don’t go back on it.