If you enjoy the fragrance of a rose, you must accept the thorns which it bears.

Have you ever wondered why young people take to music like fish to water? Maybe it's because music is fun. Plan and simple. It opens up their minds to dream great dreams about where they can go and what they can do when they get older.

There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry toward religious beliefs... begins.

A certain administration which I won't call by name took the arts out of the schools, and that left the brothers out on the street with nothing, so they went to the turntables and started rhyming. Then they had a way to express themselves, and that's the birth of hip-hop.

If you enjoy the fragrance of a rose, you must accept the thorns which it bears.

Know the business, learn the business, own something.

All the time I was writing hit songs with my partner David Porter, I always had the yen to perform. Sure did. And when the opportunity came, I took it. The first album, 'Presenting Isaac Hayes,' didn't do so hot, but it was like a prelude for what was to come.

Elvis was a giant and influenced everyone in the business.

Guys in slavery sang praises to the Lord to deliver them from bondage.

I first heard African drum rhythms and chants at the movies. Then, when I had the opportunity to go to Africa and visit the villages, I heard the real, raw, true rhythms and realised the origins of the old Negro spirituals I grew up with in the South.

I influence people, hopefully on the positive side.

I think the kids today need to hear more about morals and values.

I used to stand in front of the mic and cry.

I was a pop freak. I love music. Of course, I knew soul because I grew up in it. Writing it and everything. I love soul. But I love a tune that has some meat in it. Something I could hang my hat on. Because music is universal. Therefore, I felt no boundaries.

I'd always loved strings. When I was in high school and saw strings playing on stage, an orchestra or a symphony, all those bows moving at the same time... wow.

I've been around a long time, and when I was at the top of the hill, I was very ahead of my time! Evidence of that is that my music is still current today - you know, rappers sample it all the time. So, rather than compromise my artistic integrity, I concentrated on movies.

Just, you know, you can't put bread in a cold oven. You know, you've got to take your time. You've got to heat it up. So that's what, that's what I like to do with my music. I like to build it, and build it into a maddening, exciting crescendo.

Religious beliefs are sacred to people, and at all times should be respected and honoured.

Self-expression is always a right, but it's still not there to be abused.

The rappers have gone in and created a lot of hit music based upon my influence. And they'll tell you if you ask.

There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins.

There's always hurdles. So I just keep moving, just constantly redefining myself. That's how you stay in the race.

There's something about live players that you cannot get with machines: With live musicians, you can strike a groove, you can feed off each other... And, even though somebody might make a slight mistake, it's all real!

You never know how deep love grows till you lose it. And you never never never realize its true for you until its gone.

Self expression is always a right but its still not there to be abused.

I seemed to vow to myself that some day I would go to the region of ice and snow and go on and on till I came to one of the poles of the earth, the end of the axis upon which this great round ball turns.

The breakfast of champions is not cereal its the opposition.

With hindsight, we see that the Soviet Union never had a chance of world domination, but we didn't know that then.

But a desperate heart will seduce the mind.

The one thing I did know - because I've seen many, many of the road trip movies that everyone thinks about - is that death to a road trip movie happens when you spend too much time in the car.

Voters are hungry for principled, conservative fighters - because the threat to our liberties from Washington never has been greater.

I think the officials and NFL owners are playing to the type of game that people want to see.

Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.

I would have given up acting in a minute. I didn't like how it set me apart from other people.

A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction.

I was unemployable when I got out of college.

Although all new ideas are born in France, they are not readily adopted there. It seems that they must first commence to prosper in a foreign country.

We have a roll up your sleeves meritocracy, and we dive in and do the work so everyone can see we are in the trenches.

I can only imagine how happy life would be if we could stay so grounded in our faith that we would never waver in our positive attitudes.

I have this absurd syndrome where I get these out-of-the-blue, pathetic panic attacks. It'll be in a very easy, simple scene when everything is going swimmingly, and then suddenly, bang, I'm shvitzing and can't remember my lines.

I feel like the word 'mom' and 'supermom' should be synonymous. When you are a mom, you are a superhero.

I prefer for things to happen serendipitously, but honestly, I also love terrible pickup lines.

Every day in the year there comes some malice into the world, and where it comes from is no good place.

I personally don't think guys should get multiple chances when guys fail a steroid test.

The way to tell a really big story, I think, is to tell a really small story.

The governor's not allowed to drive. That's part of the life you accept.

People make snap judgments about me that are frequently misguided.

When Edward Gibbon was writing about the fall of the Roman Empire in the late 18th century, he could argue that transportation hadn't changed since ancient times. An imperial messenger on the Roman roads could get from Rome to London even faster in A.D. 100 than in 1750. But by 1850, and even more obviously today, all of that has changed.

I had these recipes that say do this, do that. Who MAKES these rules?