The value of beauty and inspiration is very much underrated, no question. But I want to be clear: I’m not trying to be anyone’s savior. I’m just trying to think about the future and not be sad.

Whoever is happy will make others happy too.

There wasn’t much as a kid that inspired me in what I did as an adult, but I was always very interested in what motivates people, and in telling stories and building things.

In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.

Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.

Compliment three people every day.

The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

Sometimes when you make a film you can go away for three months and then come back and live your life. But this struck a much deeper chord. I don’t have the ability yet to speak about it in an objective.

I think what motivates people is not great hate, but great love for other people.

Nothing is so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness is it to be expecting evil before it comes.

I’m just glad I was able to return to some of that innocence and beauty I had as a child when I started my own family, and my children brought me back some of that spirit.

When I had to make a decision whether or not an activity was appropriate for the Sabbath, I simply asked myself, ‚What sign do I want to give to God?‘ That question made my choices about the Sabbath day crystal clear.

I’m not a fortune-teller.

I don’t have many sad days.

A #2 pencil and a dream can take you anywhere.

When I wake up, I expect things to be good. If they’re not, then I try to set about trying to make them as good as I can ‚cause I know I’m gonna have to live that day anyway. So why not try to make the most of it if you can? Some days, they pan out a little better than others, but you still gotta always just try.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.

I’m perpetually lonely.

I wake up every day inspiring myself, because God gave me life.

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.

Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.

The more I see the less I know for sure.

What is past is prologue.

My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth.

I always wonder when it was that I was embraced.

Your life is like a play with several acts. Some of the characters who enter have short roles to play, others, much larger. Some are villains and others are good guys. But all of them are necessary; otherwise, they wouldn’t be in the play. Embrace them all, and move on to the next act.

History shows that the majority of people that have done anything great have passed their youth in seclusion.

I think it’s important as an artist to never forget where you’re from.

Life doesn’t require that we be the best, only that we try our best.

Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.

I always try to put a seed of hope into people’s hearts. I’m not there to teach them doctrine necessarily, but to let them know that God is a good God, and has a plan for their lives. Hopefully, that will restore their faith, or draw them into faith.

I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.

I still think I am the greatest.

I respect Drake not only as a creative person but as a business mind as well. I think Drake’s important.

We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or to make it the last.

Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.

I don’t want to make money, I just want to be wonderful.

The longer I live, the more I feel that true repose consists in ‚renouncing‘ one’s own self, by which I mean making up one’s mind to admit that there is no importance whatever in being ‚happy‘ or ‚unhappy‘ in the usual meaning of the words.

My life is mine to remember.

A people do not throw their geniuses away. And if they are thrown away, it is our duty as artists and as witnesses for the future to collect them again for the sake of our children and, if necessary, bone by bone.

You are never too young to learn, never too old to change.

Men take only their needs into consideration – never their abilities.

As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.

I’m a super-duper over-analyzer. You mix that with self-doubt and pressure, and that’s never healthy.

What is true of the individual will be tomorrow true of the whole nation if individuals will but refuse to lose heart and hope.

People have to go through trials and tribulations to get where they at. Do your thing – continue to rock it – because obviously, God wants you here.

Maybe I should say that memory interests me a great deal, because I think we all tell stories of our lives to ourselves as well as to other people. Well, women do, anyway. Women do this a lot. And I think when men get older, they do this too, but maybe in slightly different terms.

Never regret what you don’t write.

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.

Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of prophets. He saw with open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it and had his being there. Alone in all history, he estimated the greatness of man.

You’ve got to have faith in what you’re doing and not take no for an answer.

Beauty has as many meanings as man has moods. Beauty is the symbol of symbols. Beauty reveals everything, because it expresses nothing. When it shows us itself, it shows us the whole fiery-coloured world.

The perception of beauty is a moral test.

There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.

Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone.

As a songwriter, you respect and appreciate the writings of other people, and I often get asked, are there songs out there I wish I’d written? Yes. There’s many of them!

It’s only I have seen enough of it and the funny thing is now, I know that I’m skinny, because I know there are even smaller clothes in the store. I think I’m big, when I was big, I never thought about it.

It’s hard to articulate how I think about myself as a public figure.