Who really benefits from discouragement? More often than not, encouragement is exactly what is needed.
There is nothing like the quiet power of example.
The most wonderful thing I hear is people coming up and saying 'Thank you for my childhood', which still blows my mind but is very sweet.
So, okay, I'm not a genius. Vincent Van Gogh and Albert Einstein were geniuses.
The sign of a great player is how much he elevates his colleagues' performance.
Art is not meant to change the world, but when you see people interacting, when you see an impact on their lives, then I guess in a smaller way, this is changing the world. So, that's what I believe in. That's why I'm into creating more and more interactions.
When my mind is clear, I feel like I can give more of myself to those around me and hopefully bring light and joy and an infectious kind of energy to inspire them to do whatever they want to do. That's really the key behind it all.
I have so many e-mails from people who are like, 'I never knew a family could be happy like this... My parents hate each other. I hate my brother. We fight all the time. I never wanted to have kids before I saw your family.'
My role as an artist is not to make changes [in society] but to inspire changes.
It takes a Bobby White to make a tired 90-year-old composer write a song about love.
My dad really inspired me to start playing music.
It's very flattering to feel like you actually helped create a sub-genre.
I was always really inspired by watching the older girls competing, just seeing other Olympians do great things, and I just really wanted to be a part of that whole experience. And to be able to represent USA was always a goal of mine.
Because one of the properties of music is to entertain and to, I don't mean this lightly, distract us from the things that pull us down. Music should be not only a source for political ideas but also a source of hope.
Families are the compass that guide us. They are the inspiration to reach great heights, and our comfort when we occasionally falter.
Design is a tool that allows us to reach out and inspire, to touch others and help make lives magic and wonderful
Auden said poetry makes nothing happen. But I wonder if the opposite could be true. It could make something happen.
My mother's influence to take on new challenges and do what I though was right even though sometimes the consequences politically speaking were not good. My mother was vivacious, she was full of life, she got up every morning looking forward to the day, trying to figure out what she could do that was innovative and unprecedented and maybe controversial.
Songwriting ability is a gift. After a while, you come to realize, "I've really been blessed. I can write these things and it makes me happy, and it makes millions of people happy." It's an obligation, it's bigger than you. It's the only true magic I know. It's not pulling a rabbit out of a hat; it's real. It's your soul floating out to theirs.
I owe so much to Shakespeare. Nothing is more humbling and more exhilarating than taking ahold of those sacred words and riding them like a wave.
I think the thing I really got from Ginsberg was that you can tell a story through kind of painting pictures with words. And when I found out that you could have a profession doing that, it was thrilling to me. It just became my passion immediately, playing with words and poetry.
The Spirit speaks directly to our hearts through music. That's why music has always had such power to move people into positive action.
Artists reach areas far beyond the reach of politicians. Art, especially entertainment and music, is understood by everybody, and it lifts the spirits and the morale of those who hear it.
If I had in me something that inspires people towards the good and raises them one step on the ladder of mental and spiritual progress, I want to show it by example, indication, and deduction, not by preaching, threatening, and conspiring.
We would not - from here - counsel anyone to be guided by influences from without. ... If these come as in inspirational writings from within, and not as guidance from others - that is different ... the inspirational may develop the soul of the individual, while the automatic may rarely reach beyond the force that is guiding or directing.
