To hold a pen is to be at war.

Billy Graham is one of my great lifetime heroes. I think he epitomizes the essence of what a Christian leader should be. I have participated in some of his crusades a couple of times in Atlanta. I’ve seen the profound impact he’s had on me personally, and on other people who were not Christians and accepted Christ as Savior.

At the outset, I want to say that the suggestion that the struggle in South Africa is under the influence of foreigners or communists is wholly incorrect. I have done whatever I did because of my experience in South Africa and my own proudly felt African background, and not because of what any outsider might have said.

I am not influenced by the techniques or fashions of any other motion picture company.

The concept of commercialism in the fashion and art world is looked down upon. You know, just to think, ‚What amount of creativity does it take to make something that masses of people like?‘ And, ‚How does creativity apply across the board?‘

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

In my work, as a writer, I only photograph, in words, what I see.

I notice that my characters go out to dinner and have fun and take these great trips, but I spend so much time on their lives, I don’t have much of a personal life of my own. I have to sort of remember to fill out that little notebook on me.

In 7th grade, I believe, I wrote my first rap song. It was about everything I was seeing, everything that was going on around me.

He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book.

Sporadic thoughts will pop into my head and I’ll have to go write something down, and the next thing you know I’ve written a whole song in an hour.

An artist has no home in Europe except in Paris.

A veteran journalist has never had time to think twice before he writes.

I knew I wanted to do something creative. I didn’t think I’d have the luxury of doing something like that, because I didn’t know anyone who had pursued anything they really adored, but I had dreams for singing or writing.

It’s all make believe, isn’t it?

A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting.

Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

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.

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.

Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will, it is always interesting.

See that the imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man.

Today, I’d like to talk to Bob Marley. I’d just like to ask him what was his method. Bob is one of the greatest songwriters ever. I don’t know if people understand how powerful his songs are and the simplicity and genius behind them, from ‚Redemption Song‘ to ‚Is This Love?‘ and ‚I Shot the Sheriff.‘

I’m not a prophet or a stone aged man, just a mortal with potential of a superman. I’m living on.

I love dresses, and I’ve definitely thought about designing them someday. I just want to make sure that I wait until the time is perfect and I can do it right.

You have to be practical. So every time I say, if you want to write a novel you have to be practical, people get bored. They are disappointed. They are expecting a more dynamic, creative, artistic thing to say. What I want to say is: you have to be practical.

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.

My passion is bringing storylines around and constructing a full body of work rather than just a 16-bar verse.

An author writes a book, and that’s the book at that point. And if the author writes the book again, then somehow something has gone wrong, if you see what I mean.

I read to my kid, but I can’t stand reading.

How happy had it been for me had I been slain in the battle. It had been far more noble to have died the victim of the enemy than fall a sacrifice to the rage of my friends.

I ain’t never far away from a pencil and paper or a tape recorder.

Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervor.

The difference is slight, to the influence of an author, whether he is read by five hundred readers, or by five hundred thousand; if he can select the five hundred, he reaches the five hundred thousand.

Stay hungry, stay foolish.

He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.

And if you’re horrible to me I’m going to write a song about you and you are not going to like it. That’s how I operate.

I was set free because my greatest fear had been realized, and I still had a daughter who I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

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

When I was a teenager, I thought how great it would be if only I could write novels in English. I had the feeling that I would be able to express my emotions so much more directly than if I wrote in Japanese.

The poets are only the interpreters of the gods.

Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.

They say it is the first step that costs the effort. I do not find it so. I am sure I could write unlimited ‚first chapters‘. I have indeed written many.

The first story I finished was when I was six years old.

Generally, a writer of force is anywhere from 20 years to 200 years ahead of his generation.

The way I approach this thing, when I started to get my head screwed on straight and really trying to make something of myself as an artist, when I was 19 or 20, it became more about function for me. Like, what is this song doing to you? What is the function of this type of artform? What is it doing?

Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.

George Orwell is half journalist, half fiction writer. I’m 100 percent fiction writer… I don’t want to write messages. I want to write good stories. I think of myself as a political person, but I don’t state my political messages to anybody.

There is nothing in the world so much admired as a man who knows how to bear unhappiness with courage.

You know, Nirvana used to start rehearsals with the three of us just jamming. For, like, a half an hour, just noise and freeform crap – and usually it was crap. But sometimes things would come from it, and some songs on Nevermind came from that, and ‚Heart Shaped Box‘ and stuff on ‚In Utero‘ just happened that way.

Genres aren’t closed boxes. Stuff flows back and forth across the borders all the time.

Malcolm X was the first political person in this country that I really identified with. If he had lived and not been purged, I probably would have joined the Muslims.

Frankly, I mean, sometimes the interpretations I’ve seen on some of the songs that I’ve written are a lot more interesting than the input that I put in.

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.

Nobody should come to the movies unless he believes in heroes.

For just when ideas fail, a word comes in to save the situation.

I was a housewife, so I learned to write in times off, and I don’t think I ever gave it up, though there were times when I was very discouraged because I began to see that the stories I was writing were not very good, that I had a lot to learn, and that it was a much, much harder job than I had expected.

Civil disobedience’s main goal typically is to try to arouse and inspire others to join and do something. Well, sometimes that is a good tactic, sometimes not.

Writing makes you feel that there is a reason to go on living. If I couldn’t write, I would stop breathing.