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.

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.

Every tyrant who has lived has believed in freedom for himself.

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.

All art is but imitation of nature.

Suppose you could gain everything in the whole world, and lost your soul. Was it worth it?

They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice… that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.

There is not enough love and goodness in the world to permit giving any of it away to imaginary beings.

Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.

The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me.

Wealthy men can’t live in an island that is encircled by poverty. We all breathe the same air. We must give a chance to everyone, at least a basic chance.

A novel is never anything, but a philosophy put into images.

My whole thing is to inspire, to better people, to better myself forever in this thing that we call rap, this thing that we call hip hop.

Bravery never goes out of fashion.

Anyone can be a Superman, but nobody can be Jackie Chan.

People don’t care about what someone says about you in a movie – or even what you say, right? They care about what you build. And if you can make something that makes people’s life better, then that’s something that’s really good.

Let us be shy no longer. Let us go to our strength. Let us offer hope. Let us tell the world that a new age is not only possible but probable.

Regarding life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is worthless.

It’s really easy to have a nice philosophy about openness, but moving the world in that direction is a different thing. It requires both understanding where you want to go and being pragmatic about getting there.

It is written on the arched sky; it looks out from every star. It is the poetry of Nature; it is that which uplifts the spirit within us.

Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes.

Those who do not know how to live must make a merit of dying.

Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.

Trust and value your own divinity as well as your connection to nature. Seeing God’s work everywhere will be your reward.

Life can be boring unless you put some effort into it.

Love is the attempt to form a friendship inspired by beauty.

Our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough.

If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people.

Free people, remember this maxim: we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost.

The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not.

If there’s not drama and negativity in my life, all my songs will be really wack and boring or something.

Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!

I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the promised land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land.

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.

We have art in order not to die of the truth.

Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.

The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

We’re all dreamers.

The first step, my son, which one makes in the world, is the one on which depends the rest of our days.

The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

What we call Man’s power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.

When I am writing, I do not distinguish between the natural and supernatural. Everything seems real. That is my world, you could say.

A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.

I want a president with a record of public service, someone whose life’s work shows our children that we don’t chase fame and fortune for ourselves: we fight to give everyone a chance to succeed.

If you are a leader, you should never forget that everyone needs encouragement. And everyone who receives it – young or old, successful or less-than-successful, unknown or famous – is changed by it.

I never wanted to be the next Bruce Lee. I just wanted to be the first Jackie Chan.

I tell you the groans of the damned in hell are the deep bass of the universal anthem of praise that shall ascend to the throne of my God for ever and ever.

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!

For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.

Paradise was made for tender hearts; hell, for loveless hearts.

Whenever I write a novel, music just sort of naturally slips in (much like cats do, I suppose).

He ate and drank the precious Words, his Spirit grew robust; He knew no more that he was poor, nor that his frame was Dust.

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.

If we don’t know life, how can we know death?

One who does not know when to die, does not know how to live.

Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.

Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.

The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one: dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation. I don’t think I solve problems in my poetry; I think I uncover the problems.