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.

I want to be like Bruce Springsteen or something, making songs that are relevant.

I’m nobody, who are you?

People always say that you can’t please everybody. I think that’s a cop-out. Why not attempt it? ‚Cause think of all the people you will please if you try.

Great dreams of great dreamers are always transcended.

I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.

My thing is this; if I’m sick enough to think it, then I’m sick enough to say it.

I’ve used my femininity and my sexuality as a weapon and a tool… but that’s just natural.

When I heard ‚Jesus, Take the Wheel,‘ I was like, OK. Some people look at it as a song written for an American Idol, Carrie Underwood, who is wonderful. But when you’re a songwriter listening to a song, you hear something else. I heard that song, and wow.

Always have something beautiful in sight, even if it’s just a daisy in a jelly glass.

I remain just one thing, and one thing only, and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.

I wanted to be a doctor that I might be able to work without having to talk because for years I had been giving myself out in words.

Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the Divine.

One may have a blazing hearth in one’s soul and yet no one ever came to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way.

I always had music growing up, but music was also like a journal. It was like my personal diary or personal journal. A lot of the things I couldn’t express to an individual, I would express them in my music.

Don’t gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver or gold.

I started out in life as a poet; I was only writing poetry all through my 20s. It wasn’t until I was about 30 that I got serious about writing prose. While I was writing poems, I would often divert myself by reading detective novels; I liked them.

Oh, you weak, beautiful people who give up with such grace. What you need is someone to take hold of you – gently, with love, and hand your life back to you.

Never lose a holy curiosity.

Who’s my hero? That’s a great question… Well, I think my dad is my hero, because he’s someone I look up to every day.

All that spirits desire, spirits attain.

I write some country music. There’s a song called ‚I Hope You Dance.‘ Incredible. I was going to write that poem; somebody beat me to it.

I felt like my favorite writers have almost musical hooks in their work, whether it’s poetry or a hook at the end of a chapter that makes you want to read the next one. And I think that my favorite writers definitely have something musical about what they do, in saying something so relatable and universal and so simple.

A lot of the stuff I do in terms of PR, I learned it from Muhammad Ali.

The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, and wretches hang that jurymen may dine.

As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.

I’ve never been to New Zealand before. But one of my role models, Xena, the warrior princess, comes from there.

Asking is the beginning of receiving. Make sure you don’t go to the ocean with a teaspoon. At least take a bucket so the kids won’t laugh at you.

The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great in whatever they want to do.

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

My kind of composing is more like the work of a gardener. The gardener takes his seeds and scatters them, knowing what he is planting but not quite what will grow where and when – and he won’t necessarily be able to reproduce it again afterwards either.

Let me define a leader. He must have vision and passion and not be afraid of any problem. Instead, he should know how to defeat it. Most importantly, he must work with integrity.

One of the things you’re doing when you make art, apart from entertaining yourself and other people, is trying to see what ways of working feel good, what feels right.

The greatest heroes are those who do their duty in the daily grind of domestic affairs whilst the world whirls as a maddening dreidel.

For me, genres are a way for people to easily categorize music. But it doesn’t have to define you. It doesn’t have to limit you.

Narrow your life down to this moment. Your life situation may be full of problems – most life situations are – but find out if you have a problem at this moment. Do you have a problem now?

I try to build a full personality for each of our cartoon characters – to make them personalities.

You know, watching Dan Marino and Steve Young get nominated to the Hall of Fame… those guys are unbelievable and they did it for so long. I’d love to play like those guys, but there’s still a long way to go and a lot of growing.

Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.

I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.

Pennies do not come from heaven. They have to be earned here on earth.

At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.

Vulnerability is about showing up and being seen. It’s tough to do that when we’re terrified about what people might see or think.

‚The Lion‘ all began with a picture of a faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself, ‚Let’s try to make a story about it.‘

The eagle has no fear of adversity. We need to be like the eagle and have a fearless spirit of a conqueror!

I learn poetry, learn text, and that really keeps you alive.

I’ll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there’s evidence of any thinking going on inside it.

I love being a woman and I was not one of these women who rose through professional life by wearing men’s clothes or looking masculine. I loved wearing bright colors and being who I am.

I couldn’t talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching.

I got a greater purpose. God put something in my heart to get across, and that’s what I’m going to focus on, using my voice as an instrument and doing what needs to be done.

My life is my message.

Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass.

I tell everybody, I get so much because I give so much. I give freely, I give all my time, give all my money, give all of my soul. I try to motivate people. I try to inspire them.

A good thing to remember is somebody’s got it a lot worse than we do.

No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.

Actions are the seed of fate deeds grow into destiny.

When I’m in the studio, I’m looking for creativity I haven’t matched yet, a feeling I haven’t felt. It’s a high.

Find a beautiful piece of art. If you fall in love with Van Gogh or Matisse or John Oliver Killens, or if you fall love with the music of Coltrane, the music of Aretha Franklin, or the music of Chopin – find some beautiful art and admire it, and realize that that was created by human beings just like you, no more human, no less.

Wine gives a man nothing… it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.

Attitude and enthusiasm play a big part in my life. I get excited about the things that inspire me. I also believe in laughing and having a good time.