The more you practice, the better you get, the more freedom you have to create.

Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another.

Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.

Man, so long as he remains free, has no more constant and agonizing anxiety than find as quickly as possible someone to worship.

Only the educated are free.

The teacher is the one who gets the most out of the lessons, and the true teacher is the learner.

For me, it’s about becoming a mogul, owning my own projects, and establishing myself as a funding producer. That’s what’s big to me. The movies and all that stuff are great, but the fact that I’m in a position to do what I want to do, however I want to do it and when I want to do it is bigger.

I’m a pretty decent writer. It comes easy to me. I don’t agonize over sentences. I write like I talk. I try to make them good books.

I know how fiction matters to me, because if I want to express myself, I have to make up a story. Some people call it imagination. To me, it’s not imagination. It’s just a way of watching.

Greece needs to work on a cleaner image. It’s a big problem, as they have this reputation of being so corrupt.

All of my records, I produced, put together completely. All of them. Maybe Drake might come with an idea, and I might finish it. You gotta remember what a producer is. Quincy Jones is a producer.

As more airlines consolidated and grew larger and more focused on the bottom line, flying in the U.S. became an awful experience. Despite moves to block our airline from flying, Virgin America began service in August 2007 – with the goal of making flying good again.

There were people who incorporated melody before me, but I would deem myself the first person to successfully rap and sing.

Pound’s crazy. All poets are. They have to be. You don’t put a poet like Pound in the loony bin.

If you are going to write, say, fantasy – stop reading fantasy. You’ve already read too much. Read other things; read westerns, read history, read anything that seems interesting, because if you only read fantasy and then you start to write fantasy, all you’re going to do is recycle the same old stuff and move it around a bit.

To be a monk is to have time to practice for your transformation and healing. And after that to help with the transformation and healing of other people.

That terrible mood of depression of whether it’s any good or not is what is known as The Artist’s Reward.

You may be able to read Bernard Shaw’s plays, you may be able to quote Shakespeare or Voltaire or some new philosopher; but if you in yourself are not intelligent, if you are not creative, what is the point of this education?

In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.

Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people.

What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

If you love something – and there are things that I love – you do want more and more and more of it, but that’s not the way to produce good work. So as an author, I need to write what I need to write.

When you’re young, you keep reading new writers and you keep changing your mind about how you ought to sound.

See any detour as an opportunity to experience new things.

Fear is present when we forget that we are a part of God’s divine design. Learning to experience authentic love means abandoning ego’s insistence that you have much to fear and that you are in an unfriendly world. You can make the decision to be free from fear and doubt and return to the brilliant light of love that is always with you.

It’s insane that, since the Beatles and Dylan, it’s assumed that all musicians should do everything themselves. It’s that ridiculous, teenage idea that when Mick Jagger sings, he’s telling you something about his own life. It’s so arrogant to think that people would want to know about it anyway!

Any good piece of material like Shakespeare ought to be open to reinterpretation.

When I did have some success, it further emboldens you to be like, ‚No, I’m just going to write what I feel I should write.‘

I design things to help people to hopefully express their personality.

My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.

I don’t care if people think I am an overactor, as long as they enjoy what I do. People who think that would call Van Gogh an overpainter.

Partnering with Atlantic Records creates the opportunity to take what we’re doing to the next level, without compromising.

The whole infrastructure of air travel was, and is, part of government policy. It is not a natural development of a free economic system – at least not in the way that is claimed. The same is true of the roads, of course.

Every picture has its own demands, and every picture stimulates something within you to tell it a certain way. I don’t know what that is; I don’t think too much about that.

People want to know why I do this, why I write such gross stuff. I like to tell them I have the heart of a small boy… and I keep it in a jar on my desk.

Freedom is not given to us by anyone; we have to cultivate it ourselves. It is a daily practice… No one can prevent you from being aware of each step you take or each breath in and breath out.

No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms.

Without deviation progress is not possible.

The distinguishing sign of slavery is to have a price, and to be bought for it.

If I could write directly on a typewriter or a computer, I would do it. But keyboards have always intimidated me. I’ve never been able to think clearly with my fingers in that position. A pen is a much more primitive instrument. You feel that the words are coming out of your body and then you dig the words into the page.

Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors.

I’m actually starting to like more and more people who have convictions that are unpopular.

Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.

You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer.

Common Core is a big win for education.

As a musician and a songwriter, it is an act of the ego to believe that other people might be interested in your point of view. But it is usually an empathetic nature that gets you going in the first place.

People can cry much easier than they can change.

If you are living out of a sense of obligation you are slave.

I made all my generals out of mud.

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

A song has to take on character, shape, body and influence people to an extent that they use it for their own devices. It must affect them not just as a song, but as a lifestyle.

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.

I don’t think that you can be prescriptive about anything, I mean, life is too complicated. Maybe there are novels where the author has not in the least thought about it in terms of film, which can be turned into good films.

I’m an expert typist. I learned in high school. I would close my eyes and just type without worrying about mistakes. I tried to penetrate my heart, and as I let my thoughts drift, things bubbled up to the surface.

The only certain freedom’s in departure.

Fortunately we’re not a public company – we’re a private group of companies, and I can do what I want.

I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success… such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.

Imagination is a poor matter when it has to part company with understanding.

For all who love freedom and peace, the world without Saddam Hussein’s regime is a better and safer place.

I think, generally, I just cannot really envision life without writing and producing records and singing.

Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.