The quality of your life is not determined by the quality of your positive experiences but the quality of your negative experiences. And to get good at dealing with negative experiences is to get good at dealing with life.

Who you are is defined by the values you are willing to struggle for.

What determines your success isn’t “What do you want to enjoy?” The question is, “What pain do you want to sustain?”

People who enjoy the stresses and uncertainty of the starving artist lifestyle are ultimately the ones who live it and make it.

happiness requires struggle. The positive is the side effect of handling the negative. You can only avoid negative experiences for so long before they come roaring back to life.

99% of your thoughts are useless.

You have the ability to decide what you think. Or, you can choose NOT to think.

“How do I train myself to stop thinking useless thoughts?” Awareness. That’s where it starts. Every time you start drifting off, become aware of it. Just observe your brain. Step outside yourself and just observe the crazy shit you’re thinking about.

Set priorities on Sunday. I outline my weekly priorities and what I want to have accomplished by the following Sunday.

Map out work, play, fit, and push. Work: For each day, I outline my “Top 3,” meaning the three most important things I will have accomplished by the end of the day.

Play: Play enables me to self-express, reflect, and give my ideas space, which shows up positively in my work.

Fit: Movement keeps ideas moving forward so I aim to move my body for at least 30 minutes each day.

Push: Since learning and growth is important to me, I do something that scares me (almost) every day. This may be asking someone whom I deeply respect for an interview or writing about a topic that makes me feel vulnerable.

Batch your days. Batching actions into specific days and creating time for creativity.

CREATE on Monday/Wednesday/Friday: I create holes in my schedule for thinking and creating. On these days, I pay attention to my body and take breaks as needed.

CALLS and MEETINGS on Tuesday/Thursday: When possible, I avoid phone calls and meetings because I find them typically unproductive and often easy to solve via email.

SPONTANEOUS Saturday: With so much structure, I make room for spontaneity. On Saturday, I let go and go where the day takes me. Balancing structure with a day of free-spiritedness makes me feel whole.

INTENTIONAL Sunday: Plan for the week ahead.

Well there is a lot of work here for younger and older musicians now. Our Ministry of Culture has now really embarked on changing things for artists, and it is getting much better. We just have to organize ourselves as artists, and then things will be better.

Roosevelt talked not only about Freedom from Fear, but also Freedom from Want.

I think preaching equality among unequals is the worst form of discrimination.

I've been called a lot of things. But never, and I mean never, could anyone ever make the mistake of calling me a Yankee fan.

I came up poor. My mother only had a fourth-grade education. My dad didn't have any education at all. But they were very structured. They worked hard. You know, they didn't complain. They didn't murmur. And they believe in the Christ.

Wicked thoughts and worthless efforts gradually set their mark on the face especially the eyes.

I do read music, but I prefer playing from the heart.

I never liked guns, I hate them, I always blink before they go off.

The dinner table is a lively debate, and everybody weighs in in a different way. I like that, though.

No one would say, 'Hey, I think this medicine works, go ahead and use it.' We have testing, we go to the lab, we try it again, we have refinement. But you know what we do on the last mile? 'Oh, this is a good idea. People will like this. Let's put it out there.'

I'm glad nobody has asked me to adapt 'Wuthering Heights' because I think I would make a mess of it. Everybody makes a mess of it. I think the Bronte Sisters are mad.

So at 16 I got a job at the local radio station. And I was working after school and weekends. I did the news; I did everything. I did - played records.

As a teenager, my father took me to the shows at the Architectural Association and to places like Milton Keynes back when it was first being built. But I couldn't find anything for me. There seemed to be despair at the possibility of the built environment possessing any imagination in the real world.

Passive resistance and boycotting are now prominent features of every great national movement.

My first nephew, he couldn't say Auntie Nicole, so he called me Coco. So ever since then, everyone's called me 'Coco.'

Sometimes groups and their material can get overbloated.

We must not only cease our present desire for the growth of the state, but we must desire its decrease, its weakening.

Every state has not only the right but the duty to make adequate provision for its own defense in the way it thinks best, providing it does not do so at the expense of any other state.

Action is only really compelling when it reveals character - character revealed through action, and not action for its own sake.

Jesus of Nazareth was the most famous human being who ever lived on this planet, and he had no infrastructure, and it's never been done. He had no government, no PR guy, no money, no structure. He had nothing, yet he became the most famous human being ever.

I think I have had so much blessing - I've had my brother, who was brilliant - I think my family came closest to making a genius when they made my brother - Bailey was just all of that. He loved me.

The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us that makes our lives beautiful.

Scientists are very afraid of being proven wrong.

Even if you actually have the good intent to do something creative or special with your life, it's hard. I mean, look at the number of people who actually get the opportunity.