One thing that writers have in common is that they are readers first. They have read lots and lots of stuff, because they’re just infested with lots of stuff.

The sun is gone, but I have a light.

Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.

In order to carry a positive action we must develop here a positive vision.

Art is not a thing; it is a way.

Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.

Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.

There are 309 million people out there that are trying to improve their lot in life. And we’ve got a system that allows them to do it.

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.

Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.

There have to be reasons that you get up in the morning and you want to live. Why do you want to live? What’s the point? What inspires you? What do you love about the future? If the future does not include being out there among the stars and being a multi-planet species, I find that incredibly depressing.

Great dreams of great dreamers are always transcended.

Everybody has a purpose.

I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.

What do we, as a nation, care about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our horses?

Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.

Honestly, I think we should be delighted people still want to read, be it on a Kindle or a Nook or whatever the latest device is.

Nothing induces me to read a novel except when I have to make money by writing about it. I detest them.

I think the reason I don’t read is because, when I’m reading, I feel like I’m missing out on something else. You know, What are my friends doing? Where’s my girlfriend?

You can’t die with an unfinished book.

I’ve had two cancer bouts in my years on the Court, and the first one, Justice O’Connor told me, ‚Now, you do the chemotherapy on Friday because you’ll get over it during the weekend and you can be back in court on Monday.‘

He that lives upon hope will die fasting.

Years ago I met Richard Burton in Port Talbot, my home town, and afterwards he passed in his car with his wife, and I thought, ‚I want to get out and become like him‘. Not because of Wales, because I love Wales, but because I was so limited as a child at school and so bereft and lonely, and I thought becoming an actor would do that.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

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

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.

When I was 8 years old, I saw ‚Raiders of the Lost Ark‘ in Charlotte, North Carolina. I walked out of there and was so inspired. I loved the movie, and I knew I wanted to be that guy.

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.

What is true of the individual will be tomorrow true of the whole nation if individuals will but refuse to lose heart and hope.

‚For Whom the Bell Tolls‘ was a problem which I carried on each day. I knew what was going to happen in principle. But I invented what happened each day I wrote.

How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.

There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life.

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

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

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.

Words without actions are the assassins of idealism.

My superhero has always been Tendulkar, and it will be Tendulkar for life. He is someone who has inspired me immensely. Just watching him play for India, I used to dream of winning games for India, because he used to do it single handedly.

A man will turn over half a library to make one book.

Art is not a treasure in the past or an importation from another land, but part of the present life of all living and creating peoples.

I have fallen in love with the imagination. And if you fall in love with the imagination, you understand that it is a free spirit. It will go anywhere, and it can do anything.

Life begins on the other side of despair.

My mother is a strong, wonderful woman. I could never be anything she didn’t want me to be.

As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary.

Mr. Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty.

People who read the tabloids deserve to be lied to.

Shakespeare – I was very influenced – still am – by Shakespeare. I couldn’t believe that a white man in the 16th century could so know my heart.

Because of your smile, you make life more beautiful.

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

I like to work with artists from around the world. There are so many new inspiring filmmakers.

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

My mother was and will always remain my greatest hero.

A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.

I learned to read very early so I could read the comics, which I then started to draw.

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!

Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman.

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

A reader can never tell if it’s a real thimble or an imaginary thimble, because by the time you’re reading it, they’re the same. It’s a thimble. It’s in the book.

I consider anybody a twerp who hasn’t read ‚Democracy in America‘ by Alexis de Tocqueville. There can never be a better book than that one on the strengths and vulnerabilities inherent in our form of government.

Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting.

Muhammad Ali is a legend, a hero of mine.