The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.

Aim for the highest.

Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.

Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.

Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.

I have found far greater enthusiasm for science in America than here in Britain. There is more enthusiasm for everything in America.

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.

Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith.

Great geniuses have the shortest biographies.

Green Eggs and Ham was the story of my life. I wouldn’t eat a thing when I was a kid, but Dr. Seuss inspired me to try cauliflower!

Do not let Sunday be taken from you. If your soul has no Sunday, it becomes an orphan.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to conceive.

When younger writers and poets, musicians and painters are weakened by a stemming of funds, they come to me saddened, not as full of dreams and excitement and ideas. I am then weakened and diminished, and made less rich.

The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most.

My message, especially to young people is to have courage to think differently, courage to invent, to travel the unexplored path, courage to discover the impossible and to conquer the problems and succeed. These are great qualities that they must work towards. This is my message to the young people.

Sometimes I’ve called writing a disease. If so, I’m glad that it caught me.

With ideas it is like with dizzy heights you climb: At first they cause you discomfort and you are anxious to get down, distrustful of your own powers; but soon the remoteness of the turmoil of life and the inspiring influence of the altitude calm your blood; your step gets firm and sure and you begin to look – for dizzier heights.

When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily I should have been in that band – or at least in a Pixies cover band.

For me, the essence of the great American Dream is spiritual. I believe that our Constitution is inspired and that it is based on principles that are timeless and universal. This is the reason why 95% of all written constitutions throughout the world are modeled after our Constitution.

Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.

If you don’t know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.

Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.

People want to listen to a message, word from Jah. This could be passed through me or anybody. I am not a leader. Messenger. The words of the songs, not the person, is what attracts people.

You ask me if I keep a notebook to record my great ideas. I’ve only ever had one.

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

I don’t go off and sit down and try to write material, because then it’s contrived and forced. I just live my life, and I see things in a word or a situation or a concept, and it will create a joke for me.

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.

You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.

I’m really bad with answering questions. Usually, I don’t even answer them. I try to find inspiration inside of the question. I think, and I jump from one beam of inspiration or energy to the next, as opposed to explaining the energy.

Ambition can creep as well as soar.

Thought is the wind and knowledge the sail.

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.

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

Step with care and great tact, and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act.

We are all hungry and thirsty for concrete images. Abstract art will have been good for one thing: to restore its exact virginity to figurative art.

Love and desire are the spirit’s wings to great deeds.

If you have passion, there is no need for excuses because your enthusiasm will trump any negative reasoning you might come up with. Enthusiasm makes excuses a nonissue.

I see the face of a child. He lives in a great city. He is black. Or he is white. He is Mexican, Italian, Polish. None of that matters. What matters, he’s an American child.

We are all geniuses up to the age of ten.

From wonder into wonder existence opens.

Hope is a waking dream.

One thing that writers have in common is that they are readers first. They have read lots and lots of stuff, because they’re just infested with lots of stuff.

When a person starts to talk about their dreams, it’s as if something bubbles up from within. Their eyes brighten, their face glows, and you can feel the excitement in their words.

Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it.

O, had I but followed the arts!

I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.

The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.

The way to know life is to love many things.

I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.

I like to work with artists from around the world. There are so many new inspiring filmmakers.

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

Whatever that means, however you got on that mountain, why not try to climb it? And do it in your own way.

When I’m inspired, I get excited because I can’t wait to see what I’ll come up with next.

Get busy living, or get busy dying.

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.

Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.

The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected.

While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future.

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