My heroes don’t have anything special. They have something to tell other people but they don’t know how, so they talk to themselves.

I can honestly say, after talking about my mom passing away, I got the biggest weight off of my chest. Comedy is my therapy. That’s how I deal with my problems, my personal battles. I talk about it. I give it to my fans. When they laugh at it, it’s a release, for lack of a better word.

I can never say ‚why‘ about anything I do. I suppose I can say ‚how‘ and ‚when‘ and ‚what.‘ But ‚why‘ is impenetrable to me.

The American public’s a lot more sophisticated than we all give them credit for. And on complicated issues, I’m going to give them straight answers. And if it takes more than three minutes, I’m going to do it.

I now possess the tools as a producer and a songwriter to really just go out and make smashes all day long. I could make an album full of smash records that got pop appeal. But my heart is in hip-hop. My heart is in telling stories. And it’s like therapy for me.

It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure on the world.

I no longer feel attracted to the well-made novel. I want to write the story that will zero in and give you intense, but not connected, moments of experience. I guess that’s the way I see life. People remake themselves bit by bit and do things they don’t understand.

I make friends faster and easier than journalists.

Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot.

The essence of Richard Nixon is loneliness.

Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self.

Beware of no man more than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us.

There is but one way for a president to deal with Congress, and that is continuously, incessantly, and without interruption. If it is really going to work, the relationship has got to be almost incestuous.

In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood.

It’s very hard to live with yourself if you don’t stick with your moral code.

You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him.

The first time you say something, it’s heard. The second time, it’s recognized, and the third time it’s learned.

Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions – Why am I doing it, What the results might be and Will I be successful. Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead.

All my life I’ve been taught how to die, but no one ever taught me how to grow old.

A part of me has become immortal, out of my control.

The prospect of dating someone in her twenties becomes less appealing as you get older. At some point in your life, your tolerance level goes down and you realize that, with someone much younger, there’s nothing really to talk about.

Plot exposition that can be gently wound out by the authorial voice and internal monologue of a character in the length of a page has to be delivered in a matter of seconds on the stage.

Every man’s memory is his private literature.

I try to speak in everyday language. I feel like God has gifted me to take Bible principles and make them practical.

To a guy like me, a laugh is full of information.

If you can’t read, the only thing you can do is enjoy the pictures, not the whole story. Reading is the key to knowledge. Knowledge is the key to understanding. So read on, young man! Read on, young lady!

Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand.

I’m not arrogant enough to look back on my career and criticize my choices. It’s really not my place.

All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value.

The display of grief makes more demands than grief itself. How few men are sad in their own company.

Style is that which indicates how the writer takes himself and what he is saying. It is the mind skating circles around itself as it moves forward.

The older I get, the more important the eternal becomes to me personally.

I’m actually a very honest person, and sometimes I end up like, ‚Man, I said too much.‘ It’s hard for me not to tell the truth when you ask me.

Skype actually does get a fair bit of revenue.

Newspapers are the second hand of history. This hand, however, is usually not only of inferior metal to the other hands, it also seldom works properly.

No man is hurt but by himself.

I have many regrets, and I’m sure everyone does. The stupid things you do, you regret… if you have any sense, and if you don’t regret them, maybe you’re stupid.

I spend a lot of time balancing between faith and disbelief.

I’m never a reliable narrator, unbiased or objective.

You can stroke people with words.

A friend of mine tells that I talk in shorthand and then smudge it.

I’m a super-duper over-analyzer. You mix that with self-doubt and pressure, and that’s never healthy.

What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you?

What I see, what I went through, what a friend of mine may have went through, whatever – I rap about it.

Human beings need stories, and we’re looking for them in all kinds of places; whether it’s television, whether it’s comic books or movies, radio plays, whatever form, people are hungry for stories.

A man’s manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.

I long remained a child, and I am still one in many respects.

The darkness is really out there. It’s not something that’s in my head, just. It’s in my work because it’s in the world.

Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge.

I like telling stories, and I tell stories that interest me. It would be boring to have to go to nothing but the best restaurants. That would be a misery to me.

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.

The secret to the movie business, or any business, is to get a good education in a subject besides film – whether it’s history, psychology, economics, or architecture – so you have something to make a movie about. All the skill in the world isn’t going to help you unless you have something to say.

It’s like, remember who you always were, where you came from, who your parents were, how they raised you. Because that authentic self is going to follow you all through life, so make sure that it’s solid so it’s something that you can hold on and be proud of for the rest of your life.

We shall never be able to remove suspicion and fear as potential causes of war until communication is permitted to flow, free and open, across international boundaries.

The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

I like actors very much, but to marry one would be like marrying your brother. You look too much alike in the mirror.

Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts.

When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.

If a secret history of books could be written, and the author’s private thoughts and meanings noted down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become interesting, and dull tales excite the reader!

Every day I try to be in communication with the universe in an unconscious way.

I don’t mind how much my Ministers talk, so long as they do what I say.