My entire childhood was steeped in poverty. For me, poverty, in a way, was the first inspiration of my life, a commitment to do something for the poor.

I went to see ‚Phantom of the Opera‘ with my grandma and my mom when I was very little. The stage, the voice, the music… Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber has been a massive inspiration to me for some time – the storytelling, that deliciously somber undertone in his music.

If I waited for perfection… I would never write a word.

For a long time, I thought I was ugly and disfigured. This made me shy and timid, and I often reacted to insults that were not intended.

The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most.

The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.

When you are offended at any man’s fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.

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

I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do, provided he keeps doing them until he gets a record of successful experience behind him.

When everything works best, it’s not because you chose writing but because writing chose you. It’s when you’re mad with it, it’s when it’s stuffed in your ears, your nostrils, under your fingernails. It’s when there’s no hope but that.

Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.

When something an affliction happens to you, you either let it defeat you, or you defeat it.

I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.

Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.

It creeps me out sometimes to think of the person I was. I was a terrible person. I was mean to people.

Real life is the life that’s in you, not your circumstances, like where you live or what job you have or who you’re in relationship with.

What’s really hard is that you could care a lot for someone and not want to live with him anymore.

‚Trilogy‘ was more of a claustrophobic body of work. Before it was released, I hadn’t left my city for 21 years, and I had never been on a plane, not once. I spent my entire life on one setting; that’s probably why pieces of the album feel like one long track, because that’s what my life felt like. It felt like one long song.

A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.

Listening to and understanding our inner sufferings will resolve most of the problems we encounter.

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

No matter what your mission is, have some notion in your head. Forget the model, whether it’s government or nonprofit or profit. Ask yourself the more important question: Is my mission improving the world? Are you sure about it? Seek to disconfirm that all the time. And if you can, change your mission.

Consider the fellow. He never spends his time telling you about his previous night’s date. You get the idea he has eyes only for you and wouldn’t think of looking at another woman.

I realized the other day that I’ve lived in New York longer than I’ve lived anywhere else. It’s amazing: I am a New Yorker. It’s strange; I never thought I would be.

If I get married, I want to be very married.

I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse.

Positive anything is better than negative nothing.

Sometimes I catch myself stooping, and whenever I am like that, I am sure something is not quite right.

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

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.

There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.

Every man I meet is in some way my superior.

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.

What is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance, is understanding fear; that means, watch it, learn about it, come directly into contact with it. We are to learn about fear, not how to escape from it.

I worked with someone who told me they’d never like me. But for some reason, I just felt like I needed her approval. So I started changing myself to please her. It made me stop being social and friendly. I was so unhappy.

From my earliest childhood, my attention was specially directed to the subject of acoustics, and specially to the subject of speech, and I was urged by my father to study everything relating to these subjects, as they would have an important bearing upon what was to be my professional work.

I think that gay marriage should be between a man and a woman.

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

You’re not going to say anything about me that I’m not going to say about myself. There’s so many things that I think about myself; if someone really wanted to get at me, they could say this and this and this. So I’m going to say it before they can. It’s the best policy for me.

I’m never going to be fast, and nobody will ever mistake me for being fast.

It was weird to be married; you kind of lose your identity. You’re suddenly somebody’s wife. And you’re like, ‚Oh, I’m half of a couple now. I’ve lost me.‘

It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go.

All art is but imitation of nature.

Yes, we’ve still got more work to do. More work to do for every American still in need of a good job or a raise, paid leave or a decent retirement; for every child who needs a sturdier ladder out of poverty or a world-class education; for everyone who has not yet felt the progress of these past seven and a half years.

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.

I never smoked a cigarette until I was nine.

The older I get, the better I understand that every day is a gift.

I was poor white trash, no glitter, no glamour, but I’m not ashamed of anything.

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.

We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society.

In the fight between you and the world, back the world.

A taste for truth at any cost is a passion which spares nothing.

In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.

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

All of us should be on guard against beliefs that flatter ourselves. At the very least, we should check such beliefs against facts.

Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable.

My mother did not like children.

I’m seeing the world partially through the eyes of a kid. Not all the time. There’s no black and white to it. But sometimes I’m seeing it like I’m 4.

I just really believe people have to get hungry. I think maybe what we need to do, instead of trying to stuff our beliefs down people’s throats, is just pray for them to really be hungry and to see their neediness.

Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty; what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness.