The fact is that when you do something from your heart, you leave a heart print.

My writing is jagged and harsh, I want it to remain that way; I don’t want it smoothed out.

Our country is that spot to which our heart is bound.

The desire to annoy no one, to harm no one, can equally well be the sign of a just as of an anxious disposition.

In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit.

All my adult life people have been helping me.

I’ve never been shy or secretive with the fact that if you walk into my life, you may be walking onto a record.

I refuse to accept other people’s ideas of happiness for me. As if there’s a ‚one size fits all‘ standard for happiness.

The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.

When you become a Christian, something truly amazing happens: God comes to live inside your heart. You become the home of God.

I just write songs that I strongly believe in and that are coming from inside. There’s no tricks. It’s honesty with big melodies.

I’ve lived a very colorful life, and I’ve said some things, But not once have I taken them back, and I’ve never apologized for them – and I won’t.

When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.

I looked the people of Louisiana in the eye and told them exactly what I thought in terms that normal people use.

An unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling lie.

I think 9/11 affected everybody in one way or another.

Words can be said in bitterness and anger, and often there seems to be an element of truth in the nastiness. And words don’t go away, they just echo around.

A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead.

The most worth-while thing is to try to put happiness into the lives of others.

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.

Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world.

One hearty laugh together will bring enemies into a closer communion of heart than hours spent on both sides in inward wrestling with the mental demon of uncharitable feeling.

I don’t really have a gimmick or a ‚thing.‘ I’m one of the few artists who gets to be himself every day.

I feel like I have a job to do, like I constantly have to reinvent myself. The more I up the ante for myself, the better it is in the long run. I try to interact with my fans as much as possible. It’s good that the person I’m being onstage isn’t really an act. It’s really me.

It’s easier to aim to please and say what others want to hear than to form an opinion and fight for it, even if it means taking a risk or losing your job.

I just have a thing in my brain that when I’m about to do something that’s genuine or authentic, I think of it in song form. I’ll be like, ‚Yo, this is a human emotion that no one talks about.‘

I would be a liar, a hypocrite, or a fool – and I’m not any of those – to say that I don’t write for the reader. I do. But for the reader who hears, who really will work at it, going behind what I seem to say. So I write for myself and that reader who will pay the dues.

If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.

Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart.

To rule a country of a thousand chariots, there must be reverent attention to business, and sincerity; economy in expenditure, and love for men; and the employment of the people at the proper seasons.

Love is of all passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart and the senses.

I say what I want to say and do what I want to do. There’s no in between. People will either love you for it or hate you for it.

I want to grow old without facelifts. I want to have the courage to be loyal to the face I have made.

I always wanted a great love affair: something that feels big and full, really honest, and enough. No moment should feel slight, false, or a little off. For me, it had to be everything.

The men who followed Him were unique in their generation. They turned the world upside down because their hearts had been turned right side up. The world has never been the same.

I have a big gay and lesbian following and they’ve been very loyal and kind to me.

For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.

I shall the effect of this good lesson keeps as watchman to my heart.

A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.

A man is more frank and sincere with his emotions than a woman. We girls, I’m afraid, have a tendency to hide our feelings.

I do say things that I think will shock people. But I don’t do things to shock people. I’m not trying to be the next Tupac, but I don’t know how long I’m going to be on this planet. So while I’m here, I might as well make the most of it.

He that does good to another does good also to himself.

I have always enjoyed watching my songs make people cry.

Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?

Until you have cultivated the habit of saying some kind word of those whom you do not admire, you will be neither successful nor happy.

I have learned that as long as I hold fast to my beliefs and values – and follow my own moral compass – then the only expectations I need to live up to are my own.

My mother told me, ‚Son, nobody else but God knows.‘ And that’s what I’m about – reaching out to the people, crying with them, giving them hope. Visiting the hospital, visiting the kids with cancer, visiting the adults, and stuff like that. That’s what I do.

Being too good is apt to be uninteresting.

I didn’t come to Hollywood. Hollywood came to me. A lot of people wish they could say the things I say. Everyone out here is so phony, it’s sickening.

I always try to be myself. Ever since I was an introverted kid, I’d get on stage and be able to break out of my shell.

Let your heart feel for the afflictions and distress of everyone, and let your hand give in proportion to your purse.

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.

There is a road from the eye to heart that does not go through the intellect.

The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides.

There are more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible that in any profane history.

A physician is not angry at the intemperance of a mad patient, nor does he take it ill to be railed at by a man in fever. Just so should a wise man treat all mankind, as a physician does his patient, and look upon them only as sick and extravagant.

More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.

As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.

Jesus lived a life that was full of joy and contradictions and fights, you know? If they were to paint a picture of Jesus without contradictions, the gospels would be fake, but the contradictions are a sign of authenticity.

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.

If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter. He has a heart capable of mirth, and naturally disposed to it.