There’s so much about Dolly Parton that every female artist should look to, whether it’s reading her quotes or reading her interviews or going to one of her live shows. She’s been such an amazing example to every female songwriter out there.

I want to be an Asian Robert De Niro.

Before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it.

All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.

O, had I but followed the arts!

Music has the power to inspire the world.

Begin noticing and being careful about keeping your imagination free of thoughts that you do not wish to materialize. Instead, initiate a practice of filling your creative thoughts to overflow with ideas and wishes that you fully intend to manifest. Honor your imaginings regardless of others seeing them as crazy or impossible.

Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.

Many times, we miss out on God’s best because we give up too soon. We don’t realize how close we are to victory.

On Sundays when I speak, I hopefully give somebody something that they can use the next day at work or at home.

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

While we may lose heart, we never have to lose hope.

All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant’s revolving door.

People don’t care about what someone says about you in a movie – or even what you say, right? They care about what you build. And if you can make something that makes people’s life better, then that’s something that’s really good.

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

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

Art is not a treasure in the past or an importation from another land, but part of the present life of all living and creating peoples.

Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.

There’s no one way to be creative. Any old way will work.

Millions of people were inspired by the Apollo Program. I was five years old when I watched Apollo 11 unfold on television, and without any doubt it was a big contributor to my passions for science, engineering, and exploration.

Inspiration is hard to come by. You have to take it where you find it.

Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.

I know some of the best Dolly Parton jokes. I made ‚em up myself.

Art raises its head where creeds relax.

As a kid, we would drive up and down 77 North – that’s our highway – there would be office buildings on the side of the highway and I’d be like, that’s what my house is going to look like when I get older. I’m going to start making my house look like this.

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.

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.

Nurture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.

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.

I went to see ‚Phantom of the Opera‘ with my grandma and my mom when I was very little. The stage, the voice, the music… Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber has been a massive inspiration to me for some time – the storytelling, that deliciously somber undertone in his music.

People respond when you tell them there is a great future in front of you, you can leave your past behind.

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!

Duty, Honor, Country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be.

Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.

I got a greater purpose. God put something in my heart to get across, and that’s what I’m going to focus on, using my voice as an instrument and doing what needs to be done.

I believe in Coach Louis Wong. He is so much more than just a football coach.

The bravest person I’ve ever met was a young boy going through massive amounts of treatment for a very rare, complex and unpleasant disease. I last saw him at a Discworld convention, where he chose to take part in a game as an assassin. He died not long afterwards, and I wish I had his fortitude and sense of style.

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.

When you are organizing a group of people, the first thing that we do is we talk about the history of what other people have been able to accomplish – people that look like them, workers like them, ordinary people, working people – and we give them the list: these are people like yourself; this is what they were able to do in their community.

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

If thou art a man, admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail.

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.

The hope, the hope that lives in the breast of the black American, is just so tremendous that it overwhelms me sometimes.

Our brand of democracy is hard. But I can promise that a year from now, when I no longer hold this office, I’ll be right there with you as a citizen – inspired by those voices of fairness and vision, of grit and good humor and kindness that have helped America travel so far.

When you’re drowning, you don’t say ‚I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,‘ you just scream.

Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.

The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others.

The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today.

All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.

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

Words without actions are the assassins of idealism.

Once we start to act, hope is everywhere. So instead of looking for hope, look for action. Then, and only then, hope will come.

I know the blessing of having a dad who played 16 years in the league. That experience, and seeing him as an example, let me know that it’s possible. It’s not easy, but it’s possible.

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.

Jane Austen is the pinnacle to which all other authors aspire.

A rooster crows only when it sees the light. Put him in the dark and he’ll never crow. I have seen the light and I’m crowing.

I want people to follow their dreams, yes… but I’m not interested in telling young black kids how to be rappers… I want to show them that there’s so many other paths you can take, besides a rapper or basketball player.

I’ve done many ads because that’s my new career. It’s an inspiring extension for my mind.

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.