The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.

When you look at the light bulb above you, you remember Thomas Alva Edison. When the telephone bell rings, you remember Alexander Graham Bell. Marie Curie was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize. When you see the blue sky, you think of Sir C.V. Raman.

We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

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.

We are motivated by a keen desire for praise, and the better a man is the more he is inspired by glory. The very philosophers themselves, even in those books which they write in contempt of glory, inscribe their names.

As a kid, I used to see how Sachin Tendulkar used to win matches under pressure for India in Sharjah or other places. So I was always keen to repeat the same in similar situations. I don’t take pressure on myself when I am in the middle. I love pressure, and I always believe that pressure makes you more focused.

And poets, in my view, and I think the view of most people, do speak God’s language – it’s better, it’s finer, it’s language on a higher plane than ordinary people speak in their daily lives.

Life’s a fight. It’s a good fight of faith.

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

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.

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

The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave.

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.‘

Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.

I dwell in possibility.

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

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

Well, if Fortune be a woman, she’s a good wench for this gear.

Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world.

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.

Writing is like a ‚lust,‘ or like ‚scratching when you itch.‘ Writing comes as a result of a very strong impulse, and when it does come, I, for one, must get it out.

When I have an idea, I turn down the flame, as if it were a little alcohol stove, as low as it will go. Then it explodes and that is my idea.

I’ll say things that are serious and put them in a joke form so people can enjoy them. We laugh to keep from crying.

I wish I could play bass like Larry Graham or Bootsy Collins. My God, I’d give up just about everything else for that.

The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of the planter – for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way.

Neil Young is my hero, and such a great example. You know what that guy has been doing for the past 40 years? Making music. That’s what that guy does. Sometimes you pay attention, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes he hands it to you, sometimes he keeps it to himself. He’s a good man with a beautiful family and wonderful life.

Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.

Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.

No matter what has happened to you in the past or what is going on in your life right now, it has no power to keep you from having an amazingly good future if you will walk by faith in God. God loves you! He wants you to live with victory over sin so you can possess His promises for your life today!

When a man laughs at his troubles he loses a great many friends. They never forgive the loss of their prerogative.

Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.

If you pour your life into songs, you want them to be heard. It’s a desire to communicate. A deep desire to communicate inspires songwriting.

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.

Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.

I subscribe to the myth that an artist’s creativity comes from torment. Once that’s fixed, what do you draw on?

He who laughs best today, will also laughs last.

The one excellent thing that can be learned from a lion is that whatever a man intends doing should be done by him with a whole-hearted and strenuous effort.

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.

I’ve never been able to witness the birth of an idea. It seems as if one second, there’s nothing particularly going on, and the next second, something is there. It’s coming up out of my unconscious, up from places that I don’t even know where they are.

Having listened to great songwriters like James Taylor and Carole King, I felt there was nothing new that was coming out that really represented me and the way I felt. So I started writing my own stuff.

I’m honored that everybody’s inspired off my inspiration.

I want to thank The Beatles for almost single-handedly getting me out of writer’s block.

Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them.

There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.

He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.

We can never learn too much of His will towards us, too much of His messages and His advice. The Bible is His word and its study gives at once the foundation for our faith and an inspiration to battle onward in the fight against the tempter.

Everywhere I go I find that people… both leaders and individuals… are asking one basic question, ‚Is there any hope for the future?‘ My answer is the same, ‚Yes, through Jesus Christ.‘

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.

There’s no formula.

Why do I like to write short stories? Well, I certainly didn’t intend to. I was going to write a novel. And still! I still come up with ideas for novels. And I even start novels. But something happens to them. They break up. I look at what I really want to do with the material, and it never turns out to be a novel.

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

I do have motivation. A lot of motivation.

What I’ve discovered is that in art, as in music, there’s a lot of truth-and then there’s a lie. The artist is essentially creating his work to make this lie a truth, but he slides it in amongst all the others. The tiny little lie is the moment I live for, my moment. It’s the moment that the audience falls in love.

My favorite literary heroine is Jo March. It is hard to overstate what she meant to a small, plain girl called Jo, who had a hot temper and a burning ambition to be a writer.

If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.

We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us thru that darkness to a safe and sane future.

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

I intend to inspire people with my story: motivate young people that grew up like myself, or even not like myself. Just, you know, go through the human experience.

I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.

And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.