In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats – maybe it’s imperative that we encounter the defeats – but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. Human beings are more alike than unalike.

Mine is better than ours.

I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.

The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.

Impart as much as you can of your spiritual being to those who are on the road with you, and accept as something precious what comes back to you from them.

Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.

It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.

Time is kind of an amazing thing because you can do so much with it. I think people underestimate time… I don’t want to just sit on my phone for hours.

It would be great to be 105 and still making films.

Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend – or a meaningful day.

I’ve learned not to look at reviews. Early on, I did. I was always curious.

I create stars.

I know I will never be happy, but I know I can be gay!

Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.

I said on the equality side of it, that it is essential to a woman’s equality with man that she be the decision-maker, that her choice be controlling.

I want the world to see my body.

Everybody accuses me of moving fast when I direct a picture. I don’t move fast, but I just keep moving.

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.

Just remember, you can’t climb the ladder of success with your hands in your pockets.

Every band I’ve worked with also wants to be countercultural in the sense that they want to feel that they’ve gone somewhere that nobody else has been.

Why is it so hard for people to believe that white people are poor?! I wouldn’t say I lived in a ghetto; I’d say I lived in the ‚hood. The same friends I had back then are the same people on tour with me now.

Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.

True wealth is not of the pocket, but of the heart and of the mind.

I just kind of wake up with a new idea and new dreams every day, and I follow that dream, as they say.

Hide not your talents. They for use were made. What’s a sundial in the shade?

When a person is going through hell, and she encounters someone who went through hellish hell and survived, then she can say, ‚Mine is not so bad as all that. She came through, and so can I.‘

Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.

I think if you follow anyone home, whether they live in Houston or London, and you sit at their dinner table and talk to them about their mother who has cancer or their child who is struggling in school, and their fears about watching their lives go by, I think we’re all the same.

I have fun with ideas; I play with them.

I wake up in the morning and my mind starts making sentences, and I have to get rid of them fast – talk them or write them down.

The poets are only the interpreters of the gods.

I myself would like to become more disciplined within my work.

We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.

I draw from the crowd a lot.

It was very lucky for me as a writer that I studied the physical sciences rather than English. I wrote for my own amusement. There was no kindly English professor to tell me for my own good how awful my writing really was. And there was no professor with the power to order me what to read, either.

I could never identify with that word, ‚weak.‘

In the duel of sex woman fights from a dreadnought and man from an open raft.

We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay – and rise!

I did go to Wellesley, a women’s college. And I am of a kind of strange generation which is transitional in terms of women who wanted to go out and get jobs.

What is the use of writing plays, what is the use of writing anything, if there is not a will which finally moulds chaos itself into a race of gods.

Unless I am both capable of and willing to reopen the wound every time I write a song, if I choose to not look inside myself to write music, I’m really not worth being called an artist at all.

We have a choice about how we take what happens to us in our life and whether or not we allow it to turn us. We can become consumed by hate and darkness, or we’re able to regain our humanity somehow, or come to terms with things and learn something about ourselves.

To learn something but not to do is really not to learn. To know something but not to do is really not to know.

The few who do are the envy of the many who only watch.

Indeed, we’re strongest when the face of America isn’t only a soldier carrying a gun but also a diplomat negotiating peace, a Peace Corps volunteer bringing clean water to a village, or a relief worker stepping off a cargo plane as floodwaters rise.

Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.

I’m mortified to be on the stage, but then again, it’s the only place where I’m happy.

One element of Madonna’s career that really takes center stage is how many times she’s reinvented herself. It’s easier to stay in one look, one comfort zone, one musical style. It’s inspiring to see someone whose only predictable quality is being unpredictable.

In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm… in the real world all rests on perseverance.

Beware of the man who does not return your blow: he neither forgives you nor allows you to forgive yourself.

Everyone here has the sense that right now is one of those moments when we are influencing the future.

Poetry is the key to the hieroglyphics of nature.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

As a child of God, I am greater than anything that can happen to me.

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.

If you tell people where to go, but not how to get there, you’ll be amazed at the results.

Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works.

If small things have the power to disturb you, then who you think you are is exactly that: small.

Everything is political. I will never be a politician or even think political. Me just deal with life and nature. That is the greatest thing to me.

Watch out for the joy-stealers: gossip, criticism, complaining, faultfinding, and a negative, judgmental attitude.