Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

Life is just one damned thing after another.

Words without actions are the assassins of idealism.

Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‚What are you doing for others?‘

The Paralympic Games is about transforming our perception of the world.

There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.

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.

What is called genius is the abundance of life and health.

I just think it is important that you realize, that you’re the best in the world. Whether you are a Democrat or Republican or whether you’re libertarian or whatever, you are the best. And we should not ever forget that. And when somebody does not do the job, we got to let them go.

You might well remember that nothing can bring you success but yourself.

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.

Life loves the liver of it.

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!

I never worry about action, but only inaction.

‚Two Voices,‘ from my album with Peter Schwalm, is an intact dream-poem. I awoke one night with an image of a piece of paper and all the words of the poem written on it, so I just blundered down to the kitchen table and ‚copied it out.‘

Once you say you’re going to settle for second, that’s what happens to you in life.

It isn’t sufficient just to want – you’ve got to ask yourself what you are going to do to get the things you want.

The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.

If you’re bored with life – you don’t get up every morning with a burning desire to do things – you don’t have enough goals.

My life is the road, man. I need to keep moving.

In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.

The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

If all you’re doing is grinding for the man, it’s going to burden you. Once you say, ‚Hey, I’m grinding for the man, but I’m putting money away, and this is part of my exit strategy,‘ you’re working for you.

People always tell you, ‚Be humble. Be humble.‘ When was the last time someone told you to be amazing? Be great! Be great! Be awesome! Be awesome!

When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.

My stories run up and bite me on the leg – I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.

Leisure is the time for doing something useful. This leisure the diligent person will obtain the lazy one never.

Life is the childhood of our immortality.

It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.

I know so many people who feel hopeless, and they ask me, ‚What should I do?‘ And I say: ‚Act. Do something.‘ Because that is the best medicine against sadness and depression.

Your ability to use the principle of autosuggestion will depend, very largely, upon your capacity to concentrate upon a given desire until that desire becomes a burning obsession.

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.

At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.

Creative output, you know, is just pain. I’m going to be cliche for a minute and say that great art comes from pain.

We all gonna die eventually from something or other, but don’t be a wimp. Put up a good fight.

You need to overcome the tug of people against you as you reach for high goals.

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.

Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him.

I’m not a big believer in trying to jam stuff down somebody’s throat: ‚You’re going to do it my way.‘ I’d rather show by example and live my life and have people say, ‚You know what, I want to live like Joel has. He’s got peace and joy, and he seems content.‘

I don’t write the books. God writes the books and delivers the speeches.

Love is the answer, and you know that for sure; Love is a flower, you’ve got to let it grow.

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

The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get.

Fiction is like a spider’s web, attached ever so slightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. Often the attachment is scarcely perceptible.

I don’t think the ebbs and flows – get in great shape and then get out of shape and then see if you can get back into shape – is a good thing. So I prefer to keep my arm always ready to go.

Life is an adventure, it’s not a package tour.

Talent without working hard is nothing.

Siren voices tell me, ‚You don’t have to keep going on.‘ And then you think, ‚I’m a writer. What do I do? Sit there watching my wife clean up?‘ I don’t know. I like being a writer.

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.

If a man had more than one life, I think a little hanging would not hurt this one; but after he is once dead, we cannot bring him back, no matter how sorry we may be; so the boy shall be pardoned.

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights.

No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.

I used to consider the listener. But now I’m in a space where, if I’m not inspired, I can’t really do the music. I can’t feel it.

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.

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