When you seek the presence of your creative Spirit and are filled with passion about virtually everything you undertake, you’ll successfully remove the roadblocks from your life and enjoy the active presence of Spirit.

Success is like reaching an important birthday and finding you’re exactly the same.

The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today.

I had wanted a tape recorder since I was tiny. I thought it was a magic thing. I never got one until just before I went to art school.

The experience of pain or loss can be a formidably motivating force.

We’ve been programmed, from the time that we were very, very little, about what we can’t do – about what is impossible.

The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, familiar things new.

Writing’s just as natural to me as getting up and cooking breakfast.

I would rather earn 1% off a 100 people’s efforts than 100% of my own efforts.

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

True self is non-self, the awareness that the self is made only of non-self elements. There’s no separation between self and other, and everything is interconnected.

Nothing is more fearful than imagination without taste.

The true artist is not proud: he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly how far he is from the goal, and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun.

The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.

I’ve had a few semi-toxic relationships, but it’s not what I look for when I’m seeing someone.

I don’t tell people, ‚You’re okay the way that you are.‘ That’s not the right story. The right story is, ‚You’re way less than you could be.‘

I hate what I look like on TV, and I want to look better, and nothing makes the mothers more jealous.

If you are lucky enough to find something that you love, and you have a shot at being good at it, don’t stop, don’t put it down.

I’m trying to make God more relevant in our society.

It is better to imitate ancient than modern work.

When I am writing, I do not distinguish between the natural and supernatural. Everything seems real. That is my world, you could say.

The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go.

Like any creative human being, I would like a bit more control so that it would be a little easier for me when the director says, ‚One tear, right now,‘ that one tear would pop out.

Either you’re the one erasing or you’re the one being erased.

To feel not only submitted but willing to be anything or nothing as the Lord wills it – this is, in truth, to sing a song to our Well Beloved.

When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.

I think you can have 10,000 explanations for failure, but no good explanation for success.

All I can do is be me, whoever that is.

Our whole life is set up in the path of least resistance. We don’t want to suffer. We don’t want to feel discomfort. So the whole time, we’re living our lives in a very comfortable area. There’s no growth in that.

Whatever work you do, you think are you doing this for the good of the nation? That’s the basic training. The other basic training is discipline. Your life should be disciplined. The other thing they say is what work you get, do it well.

Don’t ever criticize yourself. Don’t go around all day long thinking, ‚I’m unattractive, I’m slow, I’m not as smart as my brother.‘ God wasn’t having a bad day when he made you… If you don’t love yourself in the right way, you can’t love your neighbour. You can’t be as good as you are supposed to be.

Lo! The poor Indian, whose untutored mind sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind.

Let every dawn be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close.

We all have two lives: an inner life and an outer life. Your inner life is your soul life, which includes your mind, will and emotions. Your outer life is your physical life. And while God cares about every detail of your life, He is more concerned with your inner life than your outer life.

That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.

Being self-made means never making an excuse as to why you can’t take steps toward whatever your goal is.

We should seek the greatest value of our action.

For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is.

I’m a painter in sound.

I don’t believe in an outside agent that creates the world, then walks away. But I feel very strongly there is an intelligence at work in every flower, in every blade of grass, in every cell of my body. And it is that intelligence that, I wouldn’t say created the universe. It is creating the universe. It’s an ongoing process.

Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.

Writing is challenging work because it’s so easy to get consumed with how it’s going, what’s going to happen to it, who’s going to like or not like it. You want to get all of that stuff out of your head and just let the work flow.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

One of my proudest moments is I didn’t sell my soul for the sake of popularity.

The dreams and passions stored within hearts are powerful keys which can unlock a wealth of potential.

Every action needs to be prompted by a motive.

All religions try to benefit people, with the same basic message of the need for love and compassion, for justice and honesty, for contentment.

Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure.

He that lives upon hope will die fasting.

Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.

Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.

The best football is always about expression of emotion. Always.

I’m always afraid of failing. I have to quiet that fear if I’m going to get up in the morning.

Man’s greatness lies in his power of thought.

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

Writing is such a strange, utterly mysterious process. First, there was nothing; then, suddenly, there was something. I don’t know where thoughts are born. Where the hell does it come from? I don’t know. I really don’t know.

To me, my house is always recreating what I lost in youth.

Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence.

He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.

I love California, I practically grew up in Phoenix.

I just want to keep writing music.