The ancestor of every action is a thought.

Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken.

The value of beauty and inspiration is very much underrated, no question. But I want to be clear: I’m not trying to be anyone’s savior. I’m just trying to think about the future and not be sad.

Enemies are so stimulating.

If you dream the proper dreams, and share the myths with people, they will want to grow up to be like you.

My dad used to have an expression – ‚It is the lucky person who gets up in the morning, puts both feet on the floor, knows what they are about to do, and thinks it still matters.‘

If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.

Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.

Changes and progress very rarely are gifts from above. They come out of struggles from below.

If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.

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

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

Meditation is to get insight, to get understanding and compassion, and when you have them, you are compelled to act.

If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self.

There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will succeed, too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury.

No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.

People like to blame others. I think a person should just look at their own situation, look around them, find out what they wish to do, and seek and go and do that. And that’s it.

How you played in yesterday’s game is all that counts.

Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.

A man lives by believing something: not by debating and arguing about many things.

Writing is a dreadful labor, yet not so dreadful as Idleness.

I think you can have 10,000 explanations for failure, but no good explanation for success.

Make yourself necessary to somebody.

Ideas have a short shelf life. You must act on them before the expiration date.

If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you’re a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind.

Doing is the great thing, for if people resolutely do what is right, they come in time to like doing it.

I never got into training to be an All-Ireland boxing champ or to win a belt. At the start, I just got into it to learn how to defend myself when I got into situations.

Life is a series of commas, not periods.

Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction.

You cannot be creative with people around you.

When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn’t a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.

Nothing succeeds like success. Get a little success, and then just get a little more.

Nothing will work unless you do.

Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it.

I wanted to get a job being creative, and I did.

I hope my story inspires everyone out there to keep hustling and chasing their dreams.

I don’t know anything that builds the will to win better than competitive sports.

Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.

As a songwriter, you respect and appreciate the writings of other people, and I often get asked, are there songs out there I wish I’d written? Yes. There’s many of them!

I’ve felt like an outsider all my life. It comes from my mother, who always felt like an outsider in my father’s family. She was a powerful woman, and she motivated my father.

There are half a dozen subjects that I return to time and time again, and that doesn’t bother me. Because most of my favorite writers do that, to hunt down the same topic or theme from different directions each time.

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.

Peace is liberty in tranquillity.

I think my biggest musical hero growing up was probably Ian MacKaye. He set a great example for all of us local musicians. Still, to this day, I see him as the best example of a right-on musician.

A great mind becomes a great fortune.

If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.

Better to fight for something than live for nothing.

Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience.

Men shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear.

We are always doing something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us.

What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.

We all sort of do want incentives for creative people to still exist at a certain level. You know, maybe rock stars shouldn’t make as much; who knows? But you want as much creativity to take place in the future as took place in the past.

For a true writer, each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.

Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands.

However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.

Imaginary evils soon become real one by indulging our reflections on them.

If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told the nearest land was a thousand miles away, I’d still swim. And I’d despise the one who gave up.

The man who has no problems is out of the game.

Next to excellence is the appreciation of it.

We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.