Each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure – that of being Salvador Dali.

Fires can’t be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men. Enthusiasm in our daily work lightens effort and turns even labor into pleasant tasks.

I hoped to be able to write a novel which would enable me to live on it while I wrote the next.

Man becomes his most creative during war.

I think writing really helps you heal yourself. I think if you write long enough, you will be a healthy person. That is, if you write what you need to write, as opposed to what will make money, or what will make fame.

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

People always say that you can’t please everybody. I think that’s a cop-out. Why not attempt it? ‚Cause think of all the people you will please if you try.

I love inventing names, but I also collect unusual names, so that I can look through my notebook and choose one that suits a new character.

You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world’s problems at once but don’t ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.

Substitute ‚damn‘ every time you’re inclined to write ‚very‘; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

To live without Hope is to Cease to live.

The future is called ‚perhaps‘, which is the only possible thing to call the future. And the important thing is not to allow that to scare you.

We represent a hustler. I think we represent inspiration. I think we represent, you know, staying down. I think we represent building yourself up from the bootstraps.

I like the idea of working in different genres and transcending genres and hopefully finding success, and ultimately make movies people like.

Yes, and I can sit down on a white piece of paper and work because I don’t believe too much into inspiration, only I’m waiting for inspiration, work and then inspiration may come. It’s a little too easy to say that.

Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.

We are all hungry and thirsty for concrete images. Abstract art will have been good for one thing: to restore its exact virginity to figurative art.

You have to steal a lot. You have to have a criminal mentality to be a film director.

Some of the stories I admire seem to zero in on one particular time and place. There isn’t a rule about this. But there’s a tidy sense about many stories I read. In my own work, I tend to cover a lot of time and to jump back and forward in time, and sometimes the way I do this is not very straightforward.

No one was ever great without some portion of divine inspiration.

Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.

Never deprive someone of hope; it might be all they have.

It seemed like a very small possibility for me to become an artist. I didn’t have the need to be on the stage; I didn’t feel the need to be heard. I just needed to write.

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

One word from the Lord is like a piece of gold to a believer, who is like a jeweler, shaping and hammering out the promise for a number of weeks.

I write because writing is something that I have to do. And it doesn’t matter whether people like it or not. When I write, I feel the pressure and anxiety that come with taking an empty piece of paper and trying to fill it with something from your own consciousness.

Two things awe me most, the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.

Diana Ross is a big inspiration to all of us. We all grew up watching everything about her – her mike placement, her grace, her style and her class.

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

If a small-town boy like me who bagged groceries was able to make his dreams come true, you can too.

The spirit is there in every boy; it has to be discovered and brought to light.

Sometimes you need faith and victory spoken over your life. Words have created power. When you receive them into your spirit, they can ignite seeds of increase on the inside.

What kind of people do they think we are? Is it possible they do not realize that we shall never cease to persevere against them until they have been taught a lesson which they and the world will never forget?

I don’t see any boundaries between any of the art forms. I think they all inter-relate completely.

Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?

I kind of make a film for myself to sort of express myself.

I’m trying to show everybody that I’m a girl, and I’m five foot four, and you can do anything you want, no matter your gender. It’s your world, too!

Civil disobedience’s main goal typically is to try to arouse and inspire others to join and do something. Well, sometimes that is a good tactic, sometimes not.

If I didn’t have my films as an outlet for all the different sides of me, I would probably be locked up.

Success is counted sweetest by those who never succeed.

I don’t invest in ideas because ideas are a dime a dozen. I could steal the idea pretty quickly.

O, had I but followed the arts!

Fiction is such a world of freedom, it’s wonderful. If you want someone to fly, they can fly.

I like Cardi B!

Whenever I write a novel, music just sort of naturally slips in (much like cats do, I suppose).

Genius… means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.

Why should poetry have to make sense?

Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.

Everywhere I go I find that people… both leaders and individuals… are asking one basic question, ‚Is there any hope for the future?‘ My answer is the same, ‚Yes, through Jesus Christ.‘

Trees go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.

I’ve gotten used to being Frank Ocean.

If you try and work out at 4:30 in the afternoon, how many people are going to chip away at that time? Your boss, your job, your work, your family, your other obligations that you might have. At 4:30 in the morning, all those people are asleep, so you can do whatever you want.

Most people already know what they’re doing wrong. When I get them to church I want to tell them that you can change.

I don’t do drugs. I am drugs.

I love dresses, and I’ve definitely thought about designing them someday. I just want to make sure that I wait until the time is perfect and I can do it right.

I have to write 100 songs before you write the first good one.

Fans are my favorite thing in the world. I’ve never been the type of artist who has that line drawn between their friends and their fans. The line’s always been really blurred for me. I’ll hang out with them after the show. I’ll hang out with them before the show. If I see them in the mall, I’ll stand there and talk to them for 10 minutes.

Just on a practical side, if you wake up early in the morning – like at 4:30 in the morning – you’re going to have some free time to yourself to make things happen, to take care of things that are important to you.

Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.

I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.