We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society.

‚Victory‘ is like, you won, so the question is, what? What did you win? I think that the songs go into that. It’s just about reaching a place in myself.

Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.

In art the best is good enough.

In other words, don’t expect to always be great. Disappointments, failures and setbacks are a normal part of the lifecycle of a unit or a company and what the leader has to do is constantly be up and say ‚we have a problem, let’s go and get it‘.

Whatever you have, you must either use or lose.

I booked my first studio at like 12 or 13. Somewhere in that season of my life, singing along with the radio became me wanting to be on radio, you know. And writing Langston Hughes replica poems became me wanting to write like Stevie Wonder.

The most effective way to do it, is to do it.

In all seriousness, people think that it’s the ideas that are important. Well, everyone has ideas, all the time. I tend to write mine down and remember them, but at some point you have to apply the bum to the seat and knock out about sixty five thousand words – that’s how long a novel is.

Get busy living, or get busy dying.

I only want my work to make people happy.

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.

If you tell me there’s something I can’t do, I’ll want to do it even more. Especially when it comes to entertaining.

To love one that is great, is almost to be great one’s self.

I know you’ve heard it a thousand times before. But it’s true – hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don’t love something, then don’t do it.

It is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance toward it, though we know it can never be reached.

We all gonna die eventually from something or other, but don’t be a wimp. Put up a good fight.

There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce.

I’m not a reality-TV kind of guy. But it’s almost like we’re living in a reality show. Every day in this country, everybody keeps worrying about the deterioration of America, and it’s like a big reality show.

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.

When Hillary was First Lady, we went to the Beijing Women’s Conference. She courageously stood up and spoke out on behalf of human rights and women’s rights, inspiring millions to fight for a better future.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.

We’re a diverse society, and I think the TV is doing a great job in showing that we’re all human beings, that we can all get along, that we can all be together, and I think that’s a marvelous thing.

I think it is perfectly natural for any artist to admire intensely and love a young man. It is an incident in the life of almost every artist.

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting.

Becoming an inspiration for kids is great. I want to inspire them to do whatever they want to.

Don’t be dependent. At all. Ever. Period.

If you stop struggling, then you stop life.

You will never fulfill your destiny doing work you despise.

You sort of start thinking anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve.

The Paralympic Games is about transforming our perception of the world.

Sometimes I’ve called writing a disease. If so, I’m glad that it caught me.

It’s so easy to settle for less than God’s best for us because we don’t always feel like taking responsibility for our behavior or putting forth some effort to do what we need to do so we can accomplish great things for God and help people. But the cost of settling for less is actually harder than being completely obedient to God’s will.

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.

The internet could be a very positive step towards education, organisation and participation in a meaningful society.

I’ve never met a genius. A genius to me is someone who does well at something he hates. Anybody can do well at something he loves – it’s just a question of finding the subject.

As much as I love the Western genre, I figured if I kept doing those, I’d eventually run out of steam on that, and that would’ve been the end of it.

I’m afraid that reason will triumph and that the world will become a place where anyone who doesn’t fit that will become unnecessary.

Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.

The smarter the journalists are, the better off society is. For to a degree, people read the press to inform themselves – and the better the teacher, the better the student body.

A word of encouragement from a teacher to a child can change a life. A word of encouragement from a spouse can save a marriage. A word of encouragement from a leader can inspire a person to reach her potential.

You can’t be afraid to fail. It’s the only way you succeed – you’re not gonna succeed all the time, and I know that.

As far as I’m concerned, I’m a writer who’s writing books, and therefore, I don’t want to die. You’d miss the end of the book wouldn’t you? You can’t die with an unfinished book.

When I’m 40 and nobody wants to see me in a sparkly dress anymore, I’ll be like: ‚Cool, I’ll just go in the studio and write songs for kids.‘

If I can be a leader, I will.

When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.

Great hearts steadily send forth the secret forces that incessantly draw great events.

Life is a journey. When we stop, things don’t go right.

Society is at odds with itself.

If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.

I guess I’m just inspired to tell stories.

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.

The few who do are the envy of the many who only watch.

Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music.

Above anything else, I hate to lose.

Everybody is entertained to death.

When your desires are strong enough you will appear to possess superhuman powers to achieve.

Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.

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.

The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it, as long as you really believe 100 percent.