Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

There is spontaneity to my work.

For me, genres are a way for people to easily categorize music. But it doesn’t have to define you. It doesn’t have to limit you.

And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with Me, to give every man according as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

There can be economy only where there is efficiency.

Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.

Three o’clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

Most of the time, songs that I write end up being finished in 30 minutes or less.

Within the soul of America is freedom of mind and spirit in man. Here alone are the open windows through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit. Here alone is human dignity not a dream but an accomplishment. Perhaps it is not perfect, but it is more full in realization here than any other place in the world.

My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone, and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom, for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.

Short cuts make long delays.

I’m not big on to-do lists. Instead, I use e-mail and desktop folders and my online calendar. So when I walk up to my desk, I can focus on the e-mails I’ve flagged and check the folders that are monitoring particular projects and particular blogs.

You don’t have to turn on the TV set. You don’t have to work on the Internet. It’s up to you.

Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration and resentment.

Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity.

If you cannot concentrate, you are not so happy.

It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.

The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.

Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.

The Roman Curia has its defects, but it seems to me that people often overemphasize its defects and talk too little about the health of the many religious and laypeople who work there.

I wake up in the morning and my mind starts making sentences, and I have to get rid of them fast – talk them or write them down.

Trouble springs from idleness, and grievous toil from needless ease.

I’m a free spirit.

This character feels so much like my brother. He has two children. He has a wife. He works with me. He chooses to stay in New Hampshire because he wants his kids to grow up in the school they started with. He doesn’t want them to lose friends. He is his family’s hero.

People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.

Never do things others can do and will do if there are things others cannot do or will not do.

Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another.

What the country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds.

Life is better when people are working, happy, and spending money.

Better never than late.

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?

Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others.

Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.

Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages.

The approach of liberty makes even an old man brave.

Freedom without limits is just a word.

I never drink coffee at lunch. I find it keeps me awake for the afternoon.

Why do you want to get a good workout early in the morning? Well, because it sends more oxygen to your brain; it releases endorphins. It puts you in a state of mind where you can crush things, which is where you want to be.

It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.

Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.

We are more thoroughly an enlightened people, with respect to our political interests, than perhaps any other under heaven. Every man among us reads, and is so easy in his circumstances as to have leisure for conversations of improvement and for acquiring information.

Like my friend Warren Buffett, I feel particularly lucky to do something every day that I love to do. He calls it ‚tap-dancing to work.‘

I always had a knack for improvisation. I can write down the notes I play, but never really had a proper academic musical background. I suppose I’m blessed and cursed by the fact I have that freedom.

I’ve always liked being busy. If I have nothing to do for a week, it just makes me mad.

The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.

Too many Christians live their lives like slaves – to the devil – because they believe his lies more than they trust God.

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good.

The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation.

Anticipate the difficult by managing the easy.

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

You can’t put democracy and freedom back into a box.

Religion has the right to express its opinion in the service of the people, but God in creation has set us free: it is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person.

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.

The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.