For a country to have a great writer is like having a second government. That is why no regime has ever loved great writers only minor ones.

Government is force pure and simple. There's no way to sugar-coat that. And because government is force it will attract the worst elements of society - people who want to use government to avoid having to earn their living and to avoid having to persuade others to accept their ideas voluntarily.

If you like small government you need to work hard at having a strong national defense that is not so militant. Personal liberty is the purpose of government to protect liberty - not to run your personal life not to run the economy and not to pretend that we can tell the world how they ought to live.

Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world.

You could write a song about some kind of emotional problem you are having but it would not be a good song in my eyes until it went through a period of sensitivity to a moment of clarity. Without that moment of clarity to contribute to the song it's just complaining.

The problem with having a sense of humor is often that people you use it on aren't in a very good mood.

I don't look to a man to get pride in myself. It's not about having a black president it's about having a good president and I think that's the most important thing.

Normal people have an incredible lack of empathy. They have good emotional empathy but they don't have much empathy for the autistic kid who is screaming at the baseball game because he can't stand the sensory overload. Or the autistic kid having a meltdown in the school cafeteria because there's too much stimulation.

By having a reverence for life we enter into a spiritual relation with the world By practicing reverence for life we become good deep and alive.

A singer starts by having his instrument as a gift from God... When you have been given something in a moment of grace it is sacrilegious to be greedy.