Inspiration quotes

Almost everything that is great has been done by youth.

Because of a great love, one is courageous.

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

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

I’ve never had writer’s block.

The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today.

The ancestor of every action is a thought.

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 modelled my looks on the town tramp.

Find a beautiful piece of art. If you fall in love with Van Gogh or Matisse or John Oliver Killens, or if you fall love with the music of Coltrane, the music of Aretha Franklin, or the music of Chopin – find some beautiful art and admire it, and realize that that was created by human beings just like you, no more human, no less.

The love of heaven makes one heavenly.

That was always the difference between Muhammad Ali and the rest of us. He came, he saw, and if he didn’t entirely conquer – he came as close as anybody we are likely to see in the lifetime of this doomed generation.

Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.

I always try to put a seed of hope into people’s hearts. I’m not there to teach them doctrine necessarily, but to let them know that God is a good God, and has a plan for their lives. Hopefully, that will restore their faith, or draw them into faith.

When I heard ‚Jesus, Take the Wheel,‘ I was like, OK. Some people look at it as a song written for an American Idol, Carrie Underwood, who is wonderful. But when you’re a songwriter listening to a song, you hear something else. I heard that song, and wow.

Life loves the liver of it.

Nothing can come of nothing.

Oh, the difference between nearly right and exactly right.

I believe that when you think of the negative, and you get up discouraged – ‚There’s nothing good in my future‘ – I really believe it almost ties the hands of God. God works where there’s an attitude of faith. I believe faith is all about hope.

What makes life dreary is the want of a motive.

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.‘

I believe that if you show people the problems and you show them the solutions they will be moved to act.

A good thing to remember is somebody’s got it a lot worse than we do.

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

What is past is prologue.

Like a pianist runs her fingers over the keys, I’ll search my mind for what to say. Now, the poem may want you to write it. And then sometimes you see a situation and think, ‚I’d like to write about that.‘ Those are two different ways of being approached by a poem, or approaching a poem.

I learned from the guys before me – Bill Cosby, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Richard Pryor, just to name a few. These are guys that let it all hang out. What they lived is what they took to the stage.

In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.

I think when people make a record with a goal in mind – like taking it to the next level or making them seem more mature – that gets in the way of writing great songs.

In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats – maybe it’s imperative that we encounter the defeats – but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. Human beings are more alike than unalike.

Ambition has one heel nailed in well, though she stretch her fingers to touch the heavens.

Kitty Wells was the first and only Queen of Country Music, no matter what they call the rest of us. She was a great inspiration to me as well as every other female singer in the country music business. In addition to being a wonderful asset to country music, she was a wonderful woman.

In a magazine, one can get – from cover to cover – 15 to 20 different ideas about life and how to live it.

The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.

I’ve never been able to witness the birth of an idea. It seems as if one second, there’s nothing particularly going on, and the next second, something is there. It’s coming up out of my unconscious, up from places that I don’t even know where they are.

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

Passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all things alive and significant.

I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels.

You can draw inspiration from anything. If you’re a good storyteller, you can take a dirty look somebody gives you, or if a guy you used to have flirtations with starts dating a new girl, or somebody you’re casually talking to says something that makes you so mad – you can create an entire scenario around that.

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.

My stories run up and bite me on the leg – I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.

Muhammad Ali is a legend, a hero of mine.

I think people inspire me the most. If I meet a person who is incredibly complex, and all of a sudden, I start thinking in rhymes, that person could be a muse.

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

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

Everybody born comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. We come from the Creator with creativity. I think that each one of us is born with creativity.

O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.

People respond when you tell them there is a great future in front of you, you can leave your past behind.

The truth of it is that every singer out there with songs on the radio is raising the next generation, so make your words count.

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

I always use Michael as, first and foremost, a vocal inspiration, and ‚Off the Wall‘ was definitely the one that made me feel like I could sing.

I’ve got my Grammys on top of my piano and I look at them when I play.

When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain.

Man is only great when he acts from passion.

I believe that each of us comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory.

Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

I just kind of wake up with a new idea and new dreams every day, and I follow that dream, as they say.

What I’ve discovered is that in art, as in music, there’s a lot of truth-and then there’s a lie. The artist is essentially creating his work to make this lie a truth, but he slides it in amongst all the others. The tiny little lie is the moment I live for, my moment. It’s the moment that the audience falls in love.

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

If you dream the proper dreams, and share the myths with people, they will want to grow up to be like you.