The past sharpens perspective, warns against pitfalls, and helps to point the way.

If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power.

For every obstacle there is a solution. Persistence is the key. The greatest mistake is giving up!

The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.

Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.

The supreme quality of leadership is integrity.

If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom.

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.

You don't lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership.

Always try to associate yourself with and learn as much as you can from those who know more than you do, who do better than you, who see more clearly than you.

To be true to one's own freedom is, in essence, to honor and respect the freedom of all others.

I never really learned the value of money. My father didn't spoil me, but I think my grandparents did.

May my heart always be open to little birds, who are the secrets of living. Whatever they sing is better than to know. And if men should not hear them - then men are old.

The truly beneficent mind looks upon every child of sorrow as their relation, and entitled to their assistance.

I was worried in the '80s that the best abstract painting had become obsessed with materiality, and painterly gestures and materiality were up against the wall.

The world is not always a kind place. That's something all children learn for themselves, whether we want them to or not, but it's something they really need our help to understand.

I want to break down some of the stigma associated with mental illness.

I can't write story-songs, like I couldn't write a Bob Dylan or Tom Waits song. I can only write whatever weird phrases come into my head, and hope that they're good.

Americans are incredibly inpatient. Someone once said that the shortest period of time in America is the time between when the light turns green and when you hear the first horn honk.

Death and its associates, after the initial shock, produce callousness.

I would never put my songs in a commercial.