“All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie.”

Creativity has a lot to do with the main idea. Inspiration is what comes when you are dealing with the idea. But inspiration won’t invite what’s not there to begin with.

You get older. You start having hopes for other people rather than yourself.

All the money you made will never buy back your soul.

I don’t think I’m tangible to myself.

An artist has got to be careful never really to arrive at a place where he thinks he’s AT somewhere. You always have to realize that you’re constantly in a state of becoming. And, as long as you can stay in that realm you’ll sort of be alright.

Creativity has much to do with experience, observation and imagination, and if any one of those key elements is missing, it doesn’t work.

I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.

Keep a good head and always carry a light bulb.

My songs always sound a lot better in person than they do on the record.

You can’t be wise and in love at the same time.

I kinda live where I find myself.

I started writing songs after I heard Hank Williams.

You need something to open up a new door, to show you something you seen before but overlooked a hundred times or more.

May your heart always be joyful. May your song always be sung.

God, I’m glad I’m not me.

I define nothing. Not beauty, not patriotism. I take each thing as it is, without prior rules about what it should be.

If you look at the common denominator of all the comics who have had big success, it’s being true to their nature… that’s what takes a long time to learn.

We only confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no big ones.

Welcome those big, sticky, complicated problems. In them are your most powerful opportunities.

Before broadcasting for 50-some years, I did TV, played 10 years in the big leagues, won a world championship – and played a big part in that, too, letting the Cardinals inject me with hepatitis. Takes a big man to do that.

A fundamental American question is, ‘What’s the big idea?’

The 1960s was an era of big thoughts. And yet, amazingly, each of these thoughts could fit on a T-shirt.

The 20th century was a test bed for big ideas – fascism, communism, the atomic bomb.

Anybody with ability can play in the big leagues. But to be able to trick people year in and year out the way I did, I think that was a much greater feat.