My favorite literary heroine is Jo March. It is hard to overstate what she meant to a small, plain girl called Jo, who had a hot temper and a burning ambition to be a writer.

I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.

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.

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.

Virtuous people often revenge themselves for the constraints to which they submit by the boredom which they inspire.

A leader is a dealer in hope.

Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervor.

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.

Art! Who comprehends her? With whom can one consult concerning this great goddess?

And I saw the sax line-up that he had behind him and I thought, I’m going to learn the saxophone. When I grow up, I’m going to play in his band. So I sort of persuaded my dad to get me a kind of a plastic saxophone on the hire purchase plan.

I take inspiration from everyone and everything. I’m inspired by current champions, former champions, true competitors, people dedicated to their dream, hard workers, dreamers, believers, achievers.

A word after a word after a word is power.

If you don’t know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.

A man’s worth is no greater than his ambitions.

I’ve never been to New Zealand before. But one of my role models, Xena, the warrior princess, comes from there.

If I’m the people’s poet, then I ought to be in people’s hands – and, I hope, in their heart.

When I got depressed, I watched Bruce Lee movies. I learned everything from Bruce Lee.

Expect me to continue what I’ve been doing, which is trying to take over the world.

I love the name of honor, more than I fear death.

Some people want to win races. Other people want to be President of the United States.

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.

Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.

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.

Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.

You can’t do it unless you can imagine it.

It usually helps me write by reading – somehow the reading gear in your head turns the writing gear.

Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.

We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.

Each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure – that of being Salvador Dali.

Thought is the wind and knowledge the sail.

The man who has no imagination has no wings.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‚I’m possible‘!

When I’m 40 and nobody wants to see me in a sparkly dress anymore, I’ll be like: ‚Cool, I’ll just go in the studio and write songs for kids.‘

The thought of being President frightens me and I do not think I want the job.

The men I idolized built their bodies and became somebody – like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger – and I thought, ‚That can be me.‘ So I started working out. The funny thing is I didn’t realize back then that I was having a defining moment.

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

We must act out passion before we can feel it.

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

A rooster crows only when it sees the light. Put him in the dark and he’ll never crow. I have seen the light and I’m crowing.

For me, writing a song, I sit down and the process doesn’t really involve me thinking about the demographic of people I’m trying to hit or who I want to be able to relate to the song or what genre of music it falls under.

A home without books is a body without soul.

There are events which are so great that if a writer has participated in them his obligation is to write truly rather than assume the presumption of altering them with invention.

Love is easy, and I love writing. You can’t resist love. You get an idea, someone says something, and you’re in love.

I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.

Often, in the real world, it’s not the smart that get ahead but the bold.

Many of my fans often tell me that they listen to my songs to get through things. And therefore, obviously, I hope that they can picture being in a place where things are better… I hope my songs can bring people to a calm place.

Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed… Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.

When I start to write, I don’t have any plan at all. I just wait for the story to come.

I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name.

The best people renounce all for one goal, the eternal fame of mortals; but most people stuff themselves like cattle.

A lot of people are focused on taking over the world or doing the biggest thing and getting the most users. I think part of making a difference and doing something cool is focusing intensely.

O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.

Kings are not born: they are made by artificial hallucination.

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

When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily I should have been in that band – or at least in a Pixies cover band.

Nor shall derision prove powerful against those who listen to humanity or those who follow in the footsteps of divinity, for they shall live forever. Forever.

The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.

Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.

The best augury of a man’s success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world.