It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.

Words are cheap. The biggest thing you can say is ‚elephant‘.

Teachers are expected to be teachers, psychiatrists, nurses, sociologists, psychologists, surrogate moms or dads, as the case may be.

And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see – or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read.

I am a big believer in education, because when I grew up in Austria – when I grew up in Austria I had a great education. I had great teachers.

To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it.

The arts don’t exist in isolation.

When I did A Soldier’s Story, I was very young and green and thought I knew everything-now I know I know everything!

If you write in the same way over and over again, like, in the same place with the same techniques and with the same people, you’re sort of writing the same song over and over again.

A state of society where men may not speak their minds cannot long endure.

Men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work least, for their minds are occupied with their ideas and the perfection of their conceptions, to which they afterwards give form.

It is crucial that young people are taught sustainable child production and rearing.

Literature must rest always on a principle, and temporal considerations are no principle at all. For, to the poet, all times and places are one; the stuff he deals with is eternal and eternally the same: no theme is inept, no past or present preferable.

All men are born with a nose and five fingers, but no one is born with a knowledge of God.

Many people feel so pressured by the expectations of others that it causes them to be frustrated, miserable and confused about what they should do. But there is a way to live a simple, joy-filled, peaceful life, and the key is learning how to be led by the Holy Spirit, not the traditions or expectations of man.

Wherever you write is supposed to be a little bit of a refuge, a place where you can get away from the world. The more closed in you are, the more you’re forced back on your own imagination.

I believe in singing to such an extent that, if I were asked to redesign the British educational system, I would start by insisting that group singing becomes a central part of the daily routine. I believe it builds character and, more than anything else, encourages a taste for cooperation with others.

Originality is a thing we constantly clamour for, and constantly quarrel with.

Love is the most powerful thing in the world, and you know, what love brings is joy.

I wrote a few children’s books… not on purpose.

Our generation in the west was lucky: we had readymade gateways. We had books, paper, teachers, schools and libraries. But many in the world lack these luxuries. How do you practice without such tryout venues?

To be conscious that you are ignorant of the facts is a great step to knowledge.

The less you know, the more you believe.

Without education we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.

If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses.

When we value correct principles, we have truth – a knowledge of things as they are.

The method of instruction in Scouting is that of creating in the boy the desire to learn for himself.

For just when ideas fail, a word comes in to save the situation.

To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.

The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.

Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.

I can say I’d honestly rather be happy than have 30 to 40 songs that I’ve written about these thrilling, exciting, horrible, unhappy times.

The idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at all.

Common Core is a big win for education.

I love great journalism. I appreciate it. I love a good, you know, I love good news stories. I love great books. I love great articles. I appreciate them so much, and they’ve been part of my education as a woman.

I try to really capitalize off of what other rappers really can’t do. There are opportunities that rappers I love simply can’t get, because… you know… I don’t have the tattoos; I have a different image.

In the future, you won’t buy artists‘ works; you’ll buy software that makes original pieces of ‚their‘ works, or that recreates their way of looking at things. You could buy a Shostakovich box, or you could buy a Brahms box. You might want some Shostakovich slow-movement-like music to be generated. So then you use that box.

Are we a nation that educates the world’s best and brightest in our universities, only to send them home to create businesses in countries that compete against us? Or are we a nation that encourages them to stay and create jobs, businesses, and industries right here in America?

I’m not interested in possible complexities. I regard song structure as a graph paper.

Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we, as a people, can be engaged in.

There is nothing so stupid as the educated man if you get him off the thing he was educated in.

I’m just writing, writing, writing. I keep these tablets on me until I’m inspired to go back in and make the music. I never take a break from my pen, because I pride myself on that.

If I waited for perfection… I would never write a word.

I think sometimes – not always – I write songs that are accessible.

O, you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you, and I would have ended my life – it was only my art that held me back. Ah, it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I felt was within me.

Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.

I hoped to be able to write a novel which would enable me to live on it while I wrote the next.

We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows.

I think you get most of the most interesting work done in fields where people don’t think they’re doing art but are merely practicing a craft and working as good craftsmen. Being literate as a writer is good craft, is knowing your job, is knowing how to use your tools properly and not to damage the tools as you use them.

If you love something – and there are things that I love – you do want more and more and more of it, but that’s not the way to produce good work.

Christmas is joy, religious joy, an inner joy of light and peace.

I’m terrified of therapy because I don’t want it to mess with my creativity.

Factoring in millions of people when I’m writing a song is not a good idea. I don’t ever do it.

I mean, what would I be doing if I couldn’t write? But that fortunately hasn’t proved to be the case and I can read any day. I still read a lot, and I can write any day, but much more slowly and fewer words.

I don’t know how many good books I still have in me; I hope there are another four or five.

Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.

When I was making ‚Star Wars,‘ I wasn’t restrained by any kind of science. I simply said, ‚I’m going to create a world that’s fun and interesting, makes sense, and seems to have a reality to it.‘

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

I think that the digital media are interesting enough in their own right to be worth originating something in.

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.

Find enough clever things to say, and you’re a Prime Minister; write them down and you’re a Shakespeare.