"I happen to be a chain breather."

“Most songwriting like poetry takes a careful selection of words. Sometimes you're just channeling something and a selection of words come out that you wouldn't normally say, but you come up with an assortment of words that are really special. It just makes sense even if it's normally how you wouldn't express yourself.”

“I'm certainly not going to tell other people what they should do with their own personal lives. I think it's certainly easier for a director to be out. The public is not going to see a movie because the director is gay or straight. It's maybe a little harder for an actor or actress because of, you know, the love roles and stuff. But gay people have been impersonating heteros in the movies for years. So, hopefully, that is becoming less of an issue. I think it would have been really great if a gay person had played a gay person. That's brave!”

“Take a deep breath, relax and imagine yourself exactly as you wish to be.”

“Self-centered anger generates evil, but wrath at social injustice becomes the driving force for reform. Strong language that censures and combats a great evil often awakens adverse reactions from society, but this must not intimidate those who believe they are right. A lion is a lion because he roars.”

“My fans are incredible. They mean the world to me, I love them dearly.”

“When people get cancer now, the first thing you do is you go to some doctors to get some advice, figure out what to do. People live a long long life after a cancer diagnosis. Not that it's not scary. The people I know have done so many stupid things. And they're still alive. Just being alive at this point is kind of icing on the cake.”

Source : Source: www.washingtontimes.com

“That's progress: when we prove things wrong.”

Source : "My wish: Find the next Einstein in Africa". TED Talk, www.ted.com. February 2008.

“Nature has provided two great gifts: life and then the diversity of living things, jellyfish and humans, worms and crocodiles. I don't undervalue the investigation of commonalities but can't avoid the conclusion that diversity has been relatively neglected, especially as concerns the brain.”