The influence of ‚Hidden Fortress‘ comes up a lot because it was printed in a book once. The truth is, the only thing I was inspired by was the fact that it’s told from the point of view of two peasants, who get mixed up with a samurai and princess and a lot of very high-level people.

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.

When we speak of faith – the faith that can move mountains – we are not speaking of faith in general but of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere.

People may think I’m trying something new by telling stories, but they’re just jokes connected to give the illusion of stories. But really, I just continue using my imagination and creating. That’s what I do.

I’m just a kid that defied the odds. I’m just a kid that ignored the doubt. I’m just a kid from a little place in Dublin, Ireland, that went all the way, and I’m going to continue to go all the way.

The men I idolized built their bodies and became somebody – like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger – and I thought, ‚That can be me.‘ So I started working out. The funny thing is I didn’t realize back then that I was having a defining moment.

To live without Hope is to Cease to live.

When I found somebody who I fell in love with, it made me feel different than I felt the rest of the day. It was electrifying. That’s what inspired the ‚Off to the Races‘ melodies. That’s one of the times when you’re feeling electrified by someone else and they make you happy to be alive.

You practice mindfulness, on the one hand, to be calm and peaceful. On the other hand, as you practice mindfulness and live a life of peace, you inspire hope for a future of peace.

Nobody is as powerful as we make them out to be.

The thing about fantasy – there are certain things you just don’t do in fantasy.

Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.

Poetry is the key to the hieroglyphics of nature.

Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.

Anything you put your mind to and add your imagination into can make your life a lot better and a lot more fun.

Songwriting is my way of channeling my feelings and my thoughts. Not just mine, but the things I see, the people I care about. My head would explode if I didn’t get some of that stuff out.

Get up, stand up, Stand up for your rights. Get up, stand up, Don’t give up the fight.

It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go.

If you enjoy living, it is not difficult to keep the sense of wonder.

I always had faith in my creative capacity.

There was a time Michael Jackson couldn’t get his video on MTV because he was considered to be ‚urban.‘ The Michael Jackson. So I literally have to be the Michael Jackson of apparel in order to break down the doors for everyone who will come after I’m gone, after I’m dead.

The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.

Sports are basically our way of feeling sorry for ourselves. Most men can’t become athletes. We’re watching guys who actually made it. We see them dunking and making touchdowns. Then we think about ourselves when we were younger.

The future influences the present just as much as the past.

A properly balanced story provides an equal representation of the negative and positive attributes of, I could say the world, but it’s actually a being. ‚Harry Potter“s a good example. So Harry’s the hero, right. But he’s tainted with evil. There’s a dark and a light in every bit of that narrative. It’s well balanced.

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.

Success is always dangerous, and we need to be alert and avoid becoming the victims of our own success. Will we influence the world for Christ, or will the world influence us?

I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering.

I used to – my earliest memory of waking up with a melody in my head was, you know, 8, 9, 10. I’ve always heard kind of melodies in my head.

Great art is the contempt of a great man for small art.

Hide not your talents. They for use were made. What’s a sundial in the shade?

Most people already know what they’re doing wrong. When I get them to church I want to tell them that you can change.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

O, had I but followed the arts!

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!

One of the wonderful things about Oprah: She teaches you to keep on stepping.

I want the reader to feel something is astonishing – not the ‚what happens‘ but the way everything happens. These long short story fictions do that best, for me.

The bravest person I’ve ever met was a young boy going through massive amounts of treatment for a very rare, complex and unpleasant disease. I last saw him at a Discworld convention, where he chose to take part in a game as an assassin. He died not long afterwards, and I wish I had his fortitude and sense of style.

I had to get rich so I could sing like I was poor again.

There are massive efforts on the part of the internet’s corporate owners to try to direct it to become a technique of marginalisation and control.

You sort of start thinking anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve.

Once I’ve written something it does tend to run away from me. I don’t seem to have any part of it – it’s no longer my piece of writing.

Deep down, I know I have this intuition or instinct that a lot of creative people have, that their demons are also what make them create.

As social animals, we are extremely susceptible to the moods of other people. This gives us the power to subtly infuse into people the appropriate mood for influencing them.

I couldn’t have written things like ‚Low‘ and ‚Heroes,‘ those particular albums, if it hadn’t have been for Berlin and the kind of atmosphere I felt there.

There is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us, and not we, them; we may make them take the mould of arm or breast, but they mould our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking.

I’m trying to show everybody that I’m a girl, and I’m five foot four, and you can do anything you want, no matter your gender. It’s your world, too!

People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude.

I modelled my looks on the town tramp.

Music is not math. It’s science. You keep mixing the stuff up until it blows up on you, or it becomes this incredible potion.

Never lose a holy curiosity.

Everything in the world exists to end up in a book.

Men are what their mothers made them.

And the idea of just wandering off to a cafe with a notebook and writing and seeing where that takes me for awhile is just bliss.

There is nothing that makes its way more directly into the soul than beauty.

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

I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.

First and last, what is demanded of genius is love of truth.

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.

My heroes don’t have anything special. They have something to tell other people but they don’t know how, so they talk to themselves.