Life is either a great adventure or nothing.

You have to dream intentionally. Most people dream a dream when they are asleep. But to be a writer, you have to dream while you are awake, intentionally.

Success is counted sweetest by those who never succeed.

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.

Religion is not a department of life; it is something that enters into the whole of it.

Each life is made up of mistakes and learning, waiting and growing, practicing patience and being persistent.

One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.

The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of the planter – for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way.

Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another.

I don’t go off and sit down and try to write material, because then it’s contrived and forced. I just live my life, and I see things in a word or a situation or a concept, and it will create a joke for me.

I always dreamt of holding the bat and winning games for India. That was my inspiration to take up cricket.

When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?

Every artist preserves deep within him a single source from which, throughout his lifetime, he draws what he is, and what he says. When the source dries up, the work withers and crumbles.

The bird is powered by its own life and by its motivation.

Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.

Everything in the world exists to end up in a book.

Nobody should come to the movies unless he believes in heroes.

Let man live at a distance from God, and the universe remains neutral or hostile to him. But let man believe in God, and immediately all around him the elements, even the irksome, of the inevitable organize themselves into a friendly whole, ordered to the ultimate success of life.

I never dreamt, in my dream, I’m Dalai Lama.

Somebody once asked me what my theory of life was, and I said, ‚Don’t try.‘ That fits the writing, too. I don’t try; I just type.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.

We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society.

As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.

Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier.

The difference between a misfortune and a calamity is this: If Gladstone fell into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him out again, that would be a calamity.

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.

Everywhere in life, the true question is not what we gain, but what we do.

Wherever the invitation of men or your own occasions lead you, speak the very truth, as your life and conscience teach it, and cheer the waiting, fainting hearts of men with new hope and new revelation.

Inspiration is hard to come by. You have to take it where you find it.

Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it.

I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels.

Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs.

Van Gogh never made a penny in his entire lifetime. He painted because it was his soul, his excitement. It was what aligned him with his Source of being. It’s the same with me and writing.

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?

Thomas Jefferson once said, ‚We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.‘ And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.

Just as courage is the danger of life, so is fear its safeguard.

I want people to draw strength from me.

Life is an exciting business, and most exciting when it is lived for others.

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!

What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?

Almost everybody is born a genius and buried an idiot.

The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion because if a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me? There is nothing between.

To love one that is great, is almost to be great one’s self.

Great art is the contempt of a great man for small art.

But in truth, should I meet with gold or spices in great quantity, I shall remain till I collect as much as possible, and for this purpose I am proceeding solely in quest of them.

It’s good to wander into the studio and walk out with something that’s better than you’d imagined it to be. If everything was as you imagined it to be, it just wouldn’t be as much fun.

Writing is like a ‚lust,‘ or like ‚scratching when you itch.‘ Writing comes as a result of a very strong impulse, and when it does come, I, for one, must get it out.

Almost everything that is great has been done by youth.

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.

You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.

I’m trying to show everybody that I’m a girl, and I’m five foot four, and you can do anything you want, no matter your gender. It’s your world, too!

The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.

Having listened to great songwriters like James Taylor and Carole King, I felt there was nothing new that was coming out that really represented me and the way I felt. So I started writing my own stuff.

We must act out passion before we can feel it.

To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.

I’ve been blessed to be somebody that’s been climbing that success mountain top for years of hard work, you know, but now it’s all connecting. And now, the whole world is watching, you know what I’m saying, and it feels good ‚cause it’s good energy. This is all positive vibes, and good vibes and good energy, so it feels incredible.

Satisfaction consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of life.

Most of my songs have names of people I’ve met or are dear to me. There are people who have privacy issues and about people knowing about their private life. But for me, I like to include few special names and few details about them to make the song very special to me.