How can we explain such inclinations? They are forces within us that come from a deeper place than conscious words can express.They draw us to certain experiences and away from others.

It is in fact the height of selfishness to merely consume what others create and to retreat into a shell of limited goals and immediate pleasures.

The truth is that creative activity is one that involves the entire self - our emotions, our levels of energy, our characters, and our minds.

The time that leads to mastery is dependent on the intensity of our focus.

The pain is kind of challenge your mind presents - will you learn how to focus and move past boredom, or like a child will you succumb to the need for immediate pleasure and distraction?

It is time to reverse this prejudice against conscious effort and to see the powers we gain through practice and discipline as eminently inspiring and even miraculous.

I can hear the tick tick tick in my head: A tripwire ready to explode in fury. And then, in my mind, I start to count down from ten…any moment now.

...I think I might die if I don't kiss you right now. A real-life kiss.

To my mind the old masters are not art their value is in their scarcity.

As to the pure all things are pure, so the common mind sees far more vulgarity in others than the mind developed in genuine refinement.

It is the hope of the European Union that Ariel Sharon will keep the peace process alive and continue the dialogue according to the wishes of all the parties involved.

If you have a great many desires, you will gradually eliminate them one by one, until you allow certain desires to dominate and the others to die away.

Sometimes, I can see the future stretched out in front of me - just as plain as day. The future hanging over there at the edge of my days. Just waiting for me.

Songs are funny things. They can slip across borders. Proliferate in prisons. Penetrate hard shells. I always believed that the right song at the right moment could change history.

And so long as I can laugh, never will I be poor. This then, is one of nature's greatest gifts and I will waste it no more.

When beggars die, there are no comets seen; the heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.