If you've got a talent, protect it.
Be thine own palace, or the world's thy jail.
To be a good loser is to learn how to win.
Never complain and never explain.
Either you run the day or the day runs you.
Who seeks shall find.
Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.
By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.
Begin to be now what you will be hereafter.
Well done is better than well said.
I spent many years trying to write a lot like Ben Folds or John Lennon or Rivers Cuomo. I think that's healthy when you're learning to write and seeing how chords fit together and how songs take shape.