Writers write to influence their readers, their preachers, their auditors, but always, at bottom, to be more themselves.

We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves in order to be like other people.

I don’t think about who the audience is for my books.

Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?

I undertake the same project as Montaigne, but with an aim contrary to his own: for he wrote his Essays only for others, and I write my reveries only for myself.

If you gonna wear the mohawk, you stick with it. You don’t just be dibby-dabbing. You make up your mind.

Everybody has their thing they like or don’t like to see. It’s all in your head. That’s why people take their own pictures, because it’s difficult for someone else to capture what you seek.

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

I have an obsession with knowing the answers to things. When I don’t know what happened, it just bothers me, gets under my skin, and I need to write about it.

I didn’t live at school, I lived where I could and studied what I enjoyed studying. I took what I wanted from that education but was making my first record at the same time. I don’t know anyone from school. I was just leading a different life. I was really interested in writing and other things.

I want the world to see my body.

I’ve been writing my entire life, and I’ll always write.

I have always been that girl in the back who doesn’t say anything.

All writers are going to have to learn more about science, because it’s such an interesting part of their environment.

I’ve never had a divorce, but I’ve seen so many of my friends, my sister, my family go through that stuff, so I try to write for the people that can’t write about it. I take on their sorrow, so I’m able to kind of express it, or their joy.

Dickens is one of those authors who are well worth stealing.

When the whole world has their eyes on you, if you say something that doesn’t truly come from your spirit and your soul, or if you wear something that doesn’t come from your spirit and your soul, it’s an injustice to your position. And so, I’m really myself every single day and I do it because I know my fans would want me to.

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

I do some kind of work, whether writing or painting or recording, on a daily basis. And it’s so essential that when I’m involved in the actual process, my so-called ‚real life‘ becomes almost incidental, which becomes worrying.

Historian: an unsuccessful novelist.

Doing graphic novels is cool! It’s fun! You get to write something, and then see it visually page by page, panel by panel, working with the artist, you get to see it fleshed out.

The question isn’t, ‚What do we want to know about people?‘, It’s, ‚What do people want to tell about themselves?‘

Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding.

For me, I used to be shy towards journalism because it wasn’t poetry. And then I realized that the events that I covered in essays that became journalism were actually great because they inspired me, and they became my muse.

When I write, it’s like choosing which shoes I’m going to put on. More often than not, my lyrics are personal – but I sometimes have to put myself in other people’s shoes.

Never regret what you don’t write.

I started out as a poet. I’ve always been a poet since I was 7 or 8. And so I feel myself to be fundamentally a poet who got into writing novels.

No one’s policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analysing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes.

If you can talk, you can write.

It’s not easy to define poetry.

Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling; it never forgives preaching of a new gospel.

It’s funny because I’ve made a living off of words, but words get in the way of what you really want to say.

I am not a consecutive writer.

That’s something that is almost accidental at the beginning of a career, but the more you write, the more trained you are to recognize the little signals.

I am criticised for not celebrating my goals enough. I am very happy from within, very calm. I just don’t celebrate. I celebrate inside.

A good day is one where I can not just read a book, but write a review of it. Maybe today I’ll be able to do that. I get for some reason somewhat stronger when the sun starts to go down. Dusk is a good time for me. I’m crepuscular.

I think your values are always influenced by your family and your community.

I couldn’t talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching.

People want to know why I do this, why I write such gross stuff. I like to tell them I have the heart of a small boy… and I keep it in a jar on my desk.

History should be written as philosophy.

I like Italian movies. I was frequently there in the ’60s, in Rome and the vicinity. It was a great period in life. I was very influenced by their stuff.

I was born during the war and grew up in a time of rationing. We didn’t have anything. It’s influenced the way I look at the world.

I feel like the reason people feel like they know me is because I’m giving you myself in the music. There’s where the connection comes from; you can’t Twitter that.

It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent.

It could be if I fight in front of one person or one million people. It’s still the same emotions.

I never write about the road. I never write about hotels or anything like that.

Nothing induces me to read a novel except when I have to make money by writing about it. I detest them.

A lot of people have said I’d have probably done better in my career if I hadn’t looked so cheap and gaudy. But I dress to be comfortable for me, and you shouldn’t be blamed because you want to look pretty.

What is the use of writing plays, what is the use of writing anything, if there is not a will which finally moulds chaos itself into a race of gods.

Everybody is a political person, whether you say something or you are silent. A political attitude is not whether you go to parliament; it’s how you deal with your life, with your surroundings.

The first story I finished was when I was six years old.

I’d have stopped writing years ago if it were for the money.

And one more thing.

Traveling around the world and preaching for over 70 years did not give much time for reflection.

I realized the power of hip-hop. I realized how influential this music and this culture are.

I think writing really helps you heal yourself. I think if you write long enough, you will be a healthy person. That is, if you write what you need to write, as opposed to what will make money, or what will make fame.

I never experiment with anything in my books. Experimentation means you don’t know what you’re doing.

I’ve had all six of my books reach the New York Times bestseller list, which is especially rewarding seeing as I flunked out of high school twice because I couldn’t write. It just goes to show you that we learn from our mistakes.

If I’m in a bad mood, or if I’m uncomfortable, it’s probably what I’m wearing that’s making me feel that way.

A poem is a naked person… Some people say that I am a poet.

When I write, I tend to twist my hair. Something for my small mind to do, I guess.