I can't help it. I always focus in on the negative.

Do what you love. It’s going to lead to where you want to go.

Almost all Iraqis with any previous experience in the intelligence business are Sunni Arab, increasing the risk of penetration of the new intelligence apparatus by the insurgency.

But I think frustration is hilarious. One of my missions is to bring humor into fine art. It's sacred.

I throw dignity out the window, and just become a creature of the moment on the stage. I act like I'd never act in real life.

If they make the deadline because the Shiites and Kurds essentially rammed a draft through over Sunni Arab objections, there will be hell to pay.

I hate people who act too cool for school. Just own up to it, dude.

The written word is the only anchor we have in life. How extraordinary would it be if we had even three or four paragraphs written honestly about their lives by our ancestors?

It's about communication, no matter how impossibly hard your art is to understand and how much of an ivory tower or high horse you get on, it's still basically communication or why are you doing it?

The only tip I have for an artist is perseverance... Never give up.

It would be really embarrassing to introduce yourself as somebody who makes beauty.

The secret to success is no secret. Be honest in your words, be trustworthy and share value. Most people won't tell the difference, but those that do are your readers.

If you are lucky, there is a moment in your life when you have some say as to what your currency is going to be. I decided early on it was not going to be my looks.

Quality products and personalized attention secures retail customers.

We are punished by our sins, not for them.

I know the outer world as well as you do, and I judge it. You know nothing of my inner world, and yet you presume to judge that world.

It's a dialogue, not a monologue, and some people don't understand that. Social media is more like a telephone than a television.

It sometimes takes 6 months or more after you've written and recorded it before you can start to enjoy the experience of singing the song.

As I started writing about loss and grief, I was taking what felt unmanageable and using my songwriting, my sense of poetry and discipline, to try and make it manageable.

Yeah, yeah. I, I don't think I'm always right. But I don't think young people are always right, either.

There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property.