Ugly ducklings don't turn into swans and glide off down the lake. Whether your sunglasses are on or off, you only see the world you make.

The consolidation of the music business has made it difficult to encourage styles like the blues, all of which deserve to be celebrated as part of our most treasured national resources.

Religion is for people who are scared to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been there.

I never saw music in terms of men and women or black and white. There was just cool and uncool.

There were so many great music and political scenes going on in the late '60s in Cambridge. The ratio of guys to girls at Harvard was four to one, so all of those things were playing in my mind.

Life gets mighty precious when there's less of it to waste.

Solar power is the last energy resource that isn't owned yet - nobody taxes the sun yet.

It's incredible to see labor unions and environmentalists getting together to stop the corporate mentality that destroys both jobs and the environment.

We can live in fear or act out of hope.

It's always enjoyable to listen to a friend's work, but if it doesn't resonate with you, then you can just appreciate it and it inspires you in its own way.

We can choose, you know, we ain't no amoeba.

What a paradox! People hate to be miserable but choose to be miserable. Remember this the next time misery arrives.

End your journey well. Don’t waste your life, and don’t be satisfied with anything less than God’s plan.

Forgiveness is not an emotion; it's a choice.

There are joys so complete, so all perfect, that one should not survive them.

Few years ago, I said something about the Academy being very white male, which is the reality, and I was slashed to pieces by the media.

I'm in tune with the right vibrations in the universe when I'm in the process of working.

Dead men never pick up their trophies.

For neither birth, nor wealth, nor honors, can awaken in the minds of men the principles which should guide those who from their youth aspire to an honorable and excellent life, as Love awakens them

If I didn't love the hourglass, I wouldn't love myself.

I think my brain is full of collisions and that's how I like to read and process information. I'm always comparing things and I think I do that subconsciously when I'm reading books of poetry.