We all sort of do want incentives for creative people to still exist at a certain level. You know, maybe rock stars shouldn’t make as much; who knows? But you want as much creativity to take place in the future as took place in the past.

I strongly believe that missionaries make better products. They care more. For a missionary, it’s not just about the business. There has to be a business, and the business has to make sense, but that’s not why you do it. You do it because you have something meaningful that motivates you.

The only happiness a brave person ever troubles themselves in asking about, is happiness enough to get their work done.

Successful people will always tell you you can do something. It’s the people who have never accomplished anything who will always discourage you from trying to achieve excellent things.

It’s not ‚can‘; it’s ‚will.‘ You have to will things into fruition.

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

We’ve all heard stories of lottery winners, rock stars, heirs and heiresses, and professional athletes becoming millionaire morons who wake up rich but are broke by nightfall.

My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.

A person who is gifted sees the essential point and leaves the rest as surplus.

I love making music. That’s what I love to do. So I don’t feel like there’s any need to take a break unless I want to.

If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.

I have my permanent muses and my muses of the moment.

Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?

I don’t focus on the critics. Everyone who is making any difference in any field has critics. As long as I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, then I don’t worry about it.

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.

When I inspire myself, I want to spread the word because its important to be healthy. I don’t think they’re teaching us enough about that. I think we should eat better and exercise. Look who’s saying that – a guy who was 300 pounds – but I’m doing a lot better than I used to. I’m letting people know its important because it makes you feel better.

Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals.

No one can resist the idea of a crippled genius.

One of my big fears is people saying my songs are all starting to sound the same.

My message to all the activists is to just keep going, and I know it really may seem impossible and hopeless sometimes – it always does – so you just have to keep going because if you try hard enough and long enough you will make a difference.

The important thing is that your teammates have to know you’re pulling for them and you really want them to be successful.

All art is quite useless.

So many people have this idea: I want to achieve something great or be somebody great. And they neglect the step that leads to greatness. They don’t honor this step at this moment because they have this idea of some future moment where they are going to be great.

Let us be shy no longer. Let us go to our strength. Let us offer hope. Let us tell the world that a new age is not only possible but probable.

Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.

I am honorary President of the American Humanist Society, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that utterly functionless capacity. We Humanists behave as well as we can, without any rewards or punishments in an Afterlife.

College isn’t the place to go for ideas.

I attribute my success to this – I never gave or took any excuse.

It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires great strength to decide on what to do.

One today is worth two tomorrows.

No man is rich enough to buy back his past.

Because of a great love, one is courageous.

Small aim is a crime.

Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.

Create a ladder of values and priorities in your life, reminding yourself of what really matters to you.

I subscribe to the myth that an artist’s creativity comes from torment. Once that’s fixed, what do you draw on?

There are still many causes worth sacrificing for, so much history yet to be made.

Great acts are made up of small deeds.

Eradications are special. Zero is a magic number. You either do what it takes to get to zero and you’re glad you did it; or you get close, give up and it goes back to where it was before, in which case you wasted all that credibility, activity, money that could have been applied to other things.

To me, the black black woman is our essential mother, the blacker she is the more us she is and to see the hatred that is turned on her is enough to make me despair, almost entirely, of our future as a people.

When you draw or paint a tree, you do not imitate the tree; you do not copy it exactly as it is, which would be mere photography. To be free to paint a tree or a flower or a sunset, you have to feel what it conveys to you: the significance, the meaning of it.

We have to wake up. We have to refuse to be a clone.

To excel at the highest level – or any level, really – you need to believe in yourself, and hands down, one of the biggest contributors to my self-confidence has been private coaching.

The whole ‚enigmatic artist‘ thing, I just ran with it.

The unsuccessful person is burdened by learning, and prefers to walk down familiar paths. Their distaste for learning stunts their growth and limits their influence.

Corruption is a cancer: a cancer that eats away at a citizen’s faith in democracy, diminishes the instinct for innovation and creativity; already-tight national budgets, crowding out important national investments. It wastes the talent of entire generations. It scares away investments and jobs.

A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past.

Music is really driving my whole life.

The eye of the master will do more work than both his hands.

How you respond to the challenge in the second half will determine what you become after the game, whether you are a winner or a loser.

We are America, second to none, and we own the finish line. Don’t forget it.

I don’t think that you can be prescriptive about anything, I mean, life is too complicated. Maybe there are novels where the author has not in the least thought about it in terms of film, which can be turned into good films.

Don’t be a spectator, don’t let life pass you by.

My stories run up and bite me on the leg – I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.

People will visit Mars, they will settle mars, and we should because it’s cool.

You do things when the opportunities come along. I’ve had periods in my life when I’ve had a bundle of ideas come along, and I’ve had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I’ll do something. If not, I won’t do a damn thing.

You just do what you can and you have as much fun as possible.

You have to be smart. The easy days are over.

I feel like in my music I can be a rebel. I can say things I wouldn’t say in real life.

Before you start a goal – let’s take care of our insecurities because they are going to surface when you put yourself in the crucible and you’re suffering.