When I heard Little Richard, I mean, it just set my world on fire.

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.

I’ve never been to New Zealand before. But one of my role models, Xena, the warrior princess, comes from there.

He ate and drank the precious Words, his Spirit grew robust; He knew no more that he was poor, nor that his frame was Dust.

I think New York has evolved in my work just the way the city has.

I think if I did something in the pop world right now, it would be for Rihanna. I’d love to do something production wise for her.

In high school I wanted to be a rock star and was in a lot of bands.

I went through all the musicians in my life who I admire as bright, intelligent, virtuosic players.

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.

Most people dream a dream when they are asleep. But to be a writer, you have to dream while you are awake, intentionally. So I get up early in the morning, 4 o’clock, and I sit at my desk and what I do is just dream. After three or four hours, that’s enough. In the afternoon, I run. The next day, the dream will continue.

I made an album I’m very proud of, and that’s about it.

Music is a really great creative tool for me, for different roles.

I never wanted to look pretty on stage and sing about something we’ve all heard about before.

If you can ask a young man to give his life for his country, you can lead people.

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.

Instead of worrying about what people say of you, why not spend time trying to accomplish something they will admire.

I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.

I always hated how I looked on camera. I never put a face to my music, which actually made the music that much more mysterious.

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.

I’ve had two cancer bouts in my years on the Court, and the first one, Justice O’Connor told me, ‚Now, you do the chemotherapy on Friday because you’ll get over it during the weekend and you can be back in court on Monday.‘

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

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

Lots of songs aren’t even from my experiences, but they’re about accepting… the dark things about yourself.

I don’t control my writing – it controls me.

Thomas Jefferson once said, ‚We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.‘ And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.

Life is a song to me.

Man’s only true happiness is to live in hope of something to be won by him. Reverence something to be worshipped by him, and love something to be cherished by him, forever.

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.

Television sounded really different than the Ramones sounded really different than us sounded really different than Blondie sounded really different than the Sex Pistols.

There is spontaneity to my work.

I’ve had quite a lot of luck with dreams. I’ve often awoken in the night with a phrase or even a whole song in my head.

I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.

I won’t be satisfied until people want to hear me sing without looking at me. Of course, that doesn’t mean I want them to stop looking.

Asking is the beginning of receiving. Make sure you don’t go to the ocean with a teaspoon. At least take a bucket so the kids won’t laugh at you.

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

Hope is not a resting place but a starting point – a cactus, not a cushion.

Those who create are rare; those who cannot are numerous. Therefore, the latter are stronger.

It is not once nor twice but times without number that the same ideas make their appearance in the world.

I’ve never wanted to use my age as a gimmick, as something that would get me ahead of other people. I’ve wanted the music to do that.

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.

Eating words has never given me indigestion.

The thing that will never go away is that connection you make with a band or a song where you’re moved by the fact that it’s real people making music. You make that human connection with a song like ‚Let It Be‘ or ‚Long and Winding Road‘ or a song like ‚Bohemian Rhapsody‘ or ‚Roxanne,‘ any of those songs. They sound like people making music.

I consider myself to have one of the greatest voices in the industry.

Ninety percent of all music is always crap, and when too many people decide they’re going to have guitar bands, then ninety percent of them are going to be crap. It’s just a given law.

There’s something about music that encourages people to want to know more about the person that made it, and where it was recorded, what year it was done, what they were listening to, and all this kind of stuff. There’s something that invites all this obsessive behavior.

Adversity is the diamond dust Heaven polishes its jewels with.

It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.

There is no great genius without some touch of madness.

I just have a thing in my brain that when I’m about to do something that’s genuine or authentic, I think of it in song form. I’ll be like, ‚Yo, this is a human emotion that no one talks about.‘

All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.

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

Nothing can come of nothing.

The ‚Maddox Jolie-Pitt‘ Foundation’s work is inspired by our children and their connections to particular countries.

It was patriotism, not communism, that inspired me.

Why do I like to write short stories? Well, I certainly didn’t intend to. I was going to write a novel. And still! I still come up with ideas for novels. And I even start novels. But something happens to them. They break up. I look at what I really want to do with the material, and it never turns out to be a novel.

The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.

I just kept touring and touring until it became second nature to go onstage, perform, and sing.

The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one: dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation. I don’t think I solve problems in my poetry; I think I uncover the problems.

The strongest influences in my life and my work are always whomever I love. Whomever I love and am with most of the time, or whomever I remember most vividly. I think that’s true of everyone, don’t you?

In a long meter hymn, a singer – they call it ‚lays out a line.‘ And then the whole church joins in in repeating that line. And they form a wall of harmony so tight, you can’t wedge a pin between it.