I was not born to amuse the Tsars.

It is better to have dreamed a thousand dreams that never were than never to have dreamed at all.

Don't be sad, don't be angry, if life deceives you! Submit to your grief - your time for joy will come, believe me.

Fearing no insult, asking for no crown, receive with indifference both flattery and slander, and do not argue with a fool.

The less we show our love to a woman, Or please her less, and neglect our duty, The more we trap and ruin her surely, In the flattering toils of philandery.

Then came a moment of renaissance, I looked up - you again are there, A fleeting vision, the quintessence Of all that's beautiful and rare.

Better the illusions that exalt us than ten thousand truths.

I’ve lived to bury my desires, And see my dreams corrode with rust; Now all that’s left are fruitless fires That burn my empty heart to dust.

Somewhere between obsession and compulsion is impulse.

A deception that elevates us is dearer than a host of low truths.

I want to understand you, I study your obscure language.

To the divisive forces that would take freedom away, I want to tell you something: You can have my gun. You can pry it from my cold dead hands!

As you get older, you're not afraid of doubt. Doubt isn't running the show. You take out all the self-agonizing.

I actually am always a music first person

In the aftermath of any war or genocide, healing and reconciliation are ultimate aspirations.

For me, to catch, to celebrate the reality and life and friends and everything around me the very moment it happens - that's what is, that's what I'm possessed by.

I think you don't do work for controversy alone, and whenever you do new work which people don't understand and they say it is done to create controversy.

When I was very young I never thought I was attractive, because I was a tomboy and I was always the biggest girl in the class.

I do believe that America's deepest political sickness is that it is a self-righteous nation.

It is ill to marry in the month of May.

A prince can mak a belted knight, A marquis, duke, and a' that; But an honest man's aboon his might: Guid faith, he maunna fa' that.