My songs are the door to every dream I’ve ever had and every success I’ve ever achieved.

I didn’t have nothin‘ going for me… school, home… until I found something I loved, which was music, and that changed everything.

There is probably a perverse pride in my administration… that we were going to do the right thing, even if short-term it was unpopular. And I think anybody who’s occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics and that you can’t be neglecting of marketing and P.R. and public opinion.

I probably hold the distinction of being one movie star who, by all laws of logic, should never have made it. At each stage of my career, I lacked the experience.

Madonna, I think, is the greatest visual musical artist that we’ve ever had. If you look at her photo log, the photographers that she was able to work with throughout her career framed her in the proper way. It was the proper context. It was that visual that made sure that everything was gonna cut through in a certain way.

I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God’s help I shall succeed.

If you want to make beautiful music, you must play the black and the white notes together.

A man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, life shall be longer, and shall pass into the immortal, as gently as we awake from dreams.

Part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians, poets, and artists, and zoologists, and historians. They also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world. But if it hadn’t been computer science, these people would have been doing amazing things in other fields.

If I’m inspired to make a certain kind of song, I’m going to make that kind of song, no matter if it’s what they know me as or think I am.

Success is only meaningful and enjoyable if it feels like your own.

The great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

Neil Young is my hero, and such a great example. You know what that guy has been doing for the past 40 years? Making music. That’s what that guy does. Sometimes you pay attention, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes he hands it to you, sometimes he keeps it to himself. He’s a good man with a beautiful family and wonderful life.

We dissect failure a lot more than we dissect success.

Without discipline, there’s no life at all.

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.

Life begins on the other side of despair.

For success of any mission, it is necessary to have creative leadership. Creative leadership is vital for government, non-governmental organisations as well as for industries.

People respond when you tell them there is a great future in front of you, you can leave your past behind.

It’s very fun to be the hunter of the sounds. The hunter of the right energy. And it’s not really about if every sound is correct; it’s more the energy – if it hits you in some way, it doesn’t really matter to me if it’s not perfect. I’m still very excited while hunting for songs.

Poetry is the key to the hieroglyphics of nature.

To what greater inspiration and counsel can we turn than to the imperishable truth to be found in this treasure house, the Bible?

Winning, to me, is easy. Winning more is the challenge.

On the summit of Everest, I had a feeling of great satisfaction to be first there.

Every noble work is at first impossible.

California has a special relationship with the Internet. Many of the core technologies that power the Internet were invented here. Many of the most successful online entrepreneurs and content creators – in business, the arts, and countless other endeavors – got their start here.

It’s a privilege to serve the poor, to be servants of noble Africans, but I better belong in the rehearsal room or in the studio with my band. That’s where I want to be and I still wake up in the morning with melodies in my head.

The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.

I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.

I believe that when you think of the negative, and you get up discouraged – ‚There’s nothing good in my future‘ – I really believe it almost ties the hands of God. God works where there’s an attitude of faith. I believe faith is all about hope.

A lot of football success is in the mind. You must believe you are the best and then make sure that you are.

I grew up on the Beatles; I love Linkin Park and Green Day. I heard hip-hop for the first time at 11 and realized what I was missing.

If one plays good music, people don’t listen and if one plays bad music people don’t talk.

Bad taste creates many more millionaires than good taste.

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.

I don’t believe I’ll ever get credit for anything I do in foreign affairs, no matter how successful it is, because I didn’t go to Harvard.

I dream of a church that is a mother and shepherdess.

Strong emotions such as passion and bliss are indications that you’re connected to Spirit, or ‚inspired,‘ if you will. When you’re inspired, you activate dormant forces, and the abundance you seek in any form comes streaming into your life.

There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.

If I get stuck, I look at a book that tells me how someone else did it. I turn the pages, and then I say, ‚Oh, I forgot that bit,‘ then close the book and carry on. Finally, after you’ve figured out how to do it, you read how they did it and find out how dumb your solution is and how much more clever and efficient theirs is!

Thanks to my fans that have been with me from the beginning, I was able to sell out arenas on my own.

I could give a flying flip about doing promo because, no disrespect, nobody put me in the position that I’m in.

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.

Giving responsibility is the key to success with boys, especially with the rowdiest and most difficult boys.

The point about melody and beat and lyric is that they exist to engage you in a very particular way. They want to occupy your attention.

Practically everybody in New York has half a mind to write a book, and does.

Great hearts steadily send forth the secret forces that incessantly draw great events.

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!

I hate to see anybody sink. I hate to see anybody lose their dream, lose their home, something like that.

When ‚Paul’s Boutique‘ came out, I was one of the fans that didn’t get it.

It was that famous joke: What’s the last thing the drummer said before he got kicked out of the band? ‚Hey, I wrote a song.‘

‚Lives‘ is one of those books I should really have written when I was younger. It is the classic childhood, adolescence, breakthrough-into-maturity book. Every beginning writer has that material – and after that, you’re not sure what you can do.

Sports are basically our way of feeling sorry for ourselves. Most men can’t become athletes. We’re watching guys who actually made it. We see them dunking and making touchdowns. Then we think about ourselves when we were younger.

I used to think that, given enough goodwill, anybody would be able to ‚get‘ any music, no matter how distant the culture from which it came. And then I heard Chinese opera.

Do your job. Do it the best you can. Do it right, because somebody, sometimes your best friend, is waiting for you to screw up so she can take your place.

In Puerto Rico we dance to everything.

The thing that will never go away is that connection you make with a band or a song where you’re moved by the fact that it’s real people making music. You make that human connection with a song like ‚Let It Be‘ or ‚Long and Winding Road‘ or a song like ‚Bohemian Rhapsody‘ or ‚Roxanne,‘ any of those songs. They sound like people making music.

I taught myself to play the guitar by listening to Paul Simon records, working it out note by note. He is an incredibly intelligent musician. He’s not someone who has a natural outpouring of melody like McCartney or Dylan, who are just terribly prolific with musical ideas.

Innovation has nothing to do with how many R & D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R & D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.

Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.