There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.

Listen; there’s a hell of a good universe next door: let’s go.

It’s the way I study – to understand something by trying to work it out or, in other words, to understand something by creating it. Not creating it one hundred percent, of course; but taking a hint as to which direction to go but not remembering the details. These you work out for yourself.

Music will never go away, and I will never stop making music; it’s just what capacity or what arena you decide to do it.

Van Gogh never made a penny in his entire lifetime. He painted because it was his soul, his excitement. It was what aligned him with his Source of being. It’s the same with me and writing.

We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.

Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over.

I’m interested in Jackson Pollock’s kind of art, where art is beautiful, but it’s nothing, and yet it’s incredible.

Everything rises and falls on leadership.

There’s poetry in being the band that can sell out Wembley but also makes a record in a garage. I don’t like doing what people expect me to do.

Why, except as a means of livelihood, a man should desire to act on the stage when he has the whole world to act in, is not clear to me.

My job is to bring out in people what they wouldn’t dare do themselves.

Music is really driving my whole life.

What is past is prologue.

Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.

There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it.

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

All the breaks you need in life wait within your imagination, Imagination is the workshop of your mind, capable of turning mind energy into accomplishment and wealth.

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.

I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels.

In art, at a certain level, there is no ‚better than.‘ It’s just about trying to operate for yourself on the most supreme level, artistically, that you can and hoping that people get it.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

Art is the proper task of life.

I used to like to set different film clips to classical music, not even my own songs, but make little movies.

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

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

I get up every morning and say, ‚Father, give me strength today, not strength so I can lift 500 pounds, but give me strength, Lord, so when I speak, my words might motivate, might inspire somebody, Lord, when they see me, let them see you. When they hear me, Lord, let them hear you. In your holy name I pray.‘

Whenever I write a novel, I have a strong sense that I am doing something I was unable to do before. With each new work, I move up a step and discover something new inside me.

I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained.

Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.

I’m still in love with what I do, with the idea of making things up, so hours when I write always feel like very blessed hours to me.

Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow.

Never regret what you don’t write.

Children always turn to the light.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its Almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my country, deserted by all the world beside, and I standing up boldly and lone and hurling defiance at her victorious oppressors.

I don’t think I’d ever apologise for music I make, no.

We don’t make music – it makes us.

Let every dawn be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close.

Get busy living, or get busy dying.

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

Scripture is filled with examples of men and women whom God used late in life, often with great impact – men and women who refused to use old age as an excuse to ignore what God wanted them to do.

I learn poetry, learn text, and that really keeps you alive.

Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.

To see things in the seed, that is genius.

We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.

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

Never, and I mean never, allow anyone else’s ideas of who you can or can’t become sully your dream or pollute your imagination. This is your territory, and a ‚Keep Out‘ sign is a great thing to erect at all entrances to your imagination.

I grew up in a rural area called Vega Baja and I’m the first of so many talented people in this area to make it out. I take great pride to represent where I come from and I am able to show my fans, and everyone who listens and watches me, that anything is possible.

For me to talk with Obama and the conversation I had with him, I was letting him know that me and my fans have a special connection, and it’s love, and I believe that love is the answer.

Every day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music and rings the whole day through, and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life march, as you will.

A leader is a dealer in hope.

The artist forges himself to the others, midway between the beauty he cannot do without and the community he cannot tear himself away from. That is why true artists scorn nothing: they are obliged to understand rather than to judge.

Faith activates God – Fear activates the Enemy.

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!

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

What turns me on about the digital age, what excited me personally, is that you have closed the gap between dreaming and doing. You see, it used to be that if you wanted to make a record of a song, you needed a studio and a producer. Now, you need a laptop.

I love inventing names, but I also collect unusual names, so that I can look through my notebook and choose one that suits a new character.

My goal in music is to create nostalgic moments.

The reason we have poverty is that we have no imagination. There are a great many people accumulating what they think is vast wealth, but it’s only money… they don’t know how to enjoy it, because they have no imagination.

I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.