Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be

It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I’d been taught about myself, and half-believed, before I was able to walk on the earth as though I had a right to be here.

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.

There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.

The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.

It demands great spiritual resilience not to hate the hater whose foot is on your neck, and an even greater miracle of perception and charity not to teach your child to hate.

People can cry much easier than they can change.

Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.

Know from whence you came. If you know whence you came, there are absolutely no limitations to where you can go.

But the relationship of morality and power is a very subtle one. Because ultimately power without morality is no longer power.

I think that maybe that's my weakness, in that I don't know how to do it, so I just do what I do and try to do it as passionately and as well as I can.

A smile costs less than electricity, but gives much light .

You have to be a really talented writer if you're trying to encapsulate a news story with a song and have it live after the event. I don't have the focus to do that, really.

I don't think of myself as giving interviews. I just have conversations. That gets me in trouble.

If something is bothering you, keep it to yourself.

My mum is actually really wholesome.

I would love to go to smaller places in the UK such as Manchester and Liverpool and play there. It's much more intimate; you got to get down and gritty, getting closer to the people.

Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present.

My mom was a frustrated woman, like so many unhappy women who didn't get the opportunities they wanted.

For everything that happens to a Christian, God is aware.