I thought it was magic to be able to catch something identically on tape and then be able to play around with it, run it backwards; I thought that was great for years.

Nothing is more fearful than imagination without taste.

Those who have been writing literature have not been writing life.

The smart thing in the art world is to have one good idea and never have another.

Like any creative human being, I would like a bit more control so that it would be a little easier for me when the director says, ‚One tear, right now,‘ that one tear would pop out.

When I’m 40 and nobody wants to see me in a sparkly dress anymore, I’ll be like: ‚Cool, I’ll just go in the studio and write songs for kids.‘

The problem with writing a book in verse is, to be successful, it has to sound like you knocked it off on a rainy Friday afternoon. It has to sound easy. When you can do it, it helps tremendously because it’s a thing that forces kids to read on. You have this unconsummated feeling if you stop.

Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one.

And I wound up in New Orleans for all those years and it was a great place, really a catalyst creatively.

I have not worked out my poems with a careful will, falling rather on haphazard and blind formulation of wordage, a more flowing concept, in a hope for a more new and lively path. I do personalize at times, but this only for the grace and elan of the dance.

As everything becomes digitized, there’s the idea that things that can’t be digitized become more valuable.

Literally wrote ‚Starboy‘ in 30 minutes.

I do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by married men.

One of the interesting things about having little musical knowledge is that you generate surprising results sometimes; you move to places you wouldn’t if you knew better.

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?

It takes these very simple-minded instructions – ‚Go fetch a number, add it to this number, put the result there, perceive if it’s greater than this other number‘ – but executes them at a rate of, let’s say, 1,000,000 per second. At 1,000,000 per second, the results appear to be magic.

Well, Apple invented the PC as we know it, and then it invented the graphical user interface as we know it eight years later (with the introduction of the Mac). But then, the company had a decade in which it took a nap.

I’m saving that rocker for the day when I feel as old as I really am.

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.

I spent a lot of years trying to outrun or outsmart vulnerability by making things certain and definite, black and white, good and bad. My inability to lean into the discomfort of vulnerability limited the fullness of those important experiences that are wrought with uncertainty: Love, belonging, trust, joy, and creativity to name a few.

My priority is my books, at least at this point. What I have to do is write the narrative of this time.

That great Cathedral space which was childhood.

I try to do the fancy things out there by going with both hands, making crossover moves, and having a certain creativity and flair to my game.

I feel, as a songwriter, it’s one of the hardest things to do – to sit down and say how you feel.

I just want to keep pushing the envelope without it feeling forced.

If I went out to play basketball with other kids, when I came home I’d shower and go right back to the computer again. If there was a birthday party or a family activity, I would take my laptop and spend the whole day there.

I don’t think human beings learn anything without desperation. Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything or creating anything. Period. If you ain’t desperate at some point, you ain’t interesting.

We were on for six years. We were in syndication for a while. It had its run. I still see the people from ‚Mr. Belvedere,‘ too. We stay in touch.

When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.

I’ve got nothing against records – I’ve spent my life making them – but they are a kind of historical blip.

Writing and cafes are strongly linked in my brain.

When I went back to England after a year away, the country seemed stuck, dozing in a fairy tale, stifled by the weight of tradition.

A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.

The intersection of law, politics, and technology is going to force a lot of good thinking.

When I started working on ambient music, my idea was to make music that was more like painting.

You have to be practical. So every time I say, if you want to write a novel you have to be practical, people get bored. They are disappointed. They are expecting a more dynamic, creative, artistic thing to say. What I want to say is: you have to be practical.

Most people have no idea what something would sound like if it wasn’t an MP3.

It was as if all of the happiness, all of the magic of this blissful hour had flowed together into these stirring, bittersweet tones and flowed away, becoming temporal and transitory once more.

The artist in me cries out for design.

There’s no formula.

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

Tesla is becoming a real car company.

Many are they who have a taste and love for drawing, but no talent; and this will be discernible in boys who are not diligent and never finish their drawings with shading.

Live out of your imagination, not your history.

Everybody born comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. We come from the Creator with creativity. I think that each one of us is born with creativity.

What my character is or how many jails I have lounged in, or wards or walls or wassails, how many lonely-heart poetry readings I have dodged, is beside the point. A man’s soul or lack of it will be evident with what he can carve upon a white sheet of paper.

What inspires me about rap is that it’s written in an almost poetic way. I just think it’s so cool.

Fashion is inspired by youth and nostalgia and draws inspiration from the best of the past.

In business, success often depends upon the relative age of your ideas.

Corruption is a cancer: a cancer that eats away at a citizen’s faith in democracy, diminishes the instinct for innovation and creativity; already-tight national budgets, crowding out important national investments. It wastes the talent of entire generations. It scares away investments and jobs.

If an idea isn’t exciting, you shouldn’t do it.

I listen to my old records and I think, ‚How did I ever get on the radio?‘

The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

My paintings have gotten to be pretty popular and I’ve taken a little bit more interest in painting the last few years. In fact, my novel that I wrote not too long ago, ‚The Hornet’s Nest,‘ I painted the cover picture for it and I do a good bit of painting now.

I’ve always been amazed by Da Vinci, because he worked out science on his own. He would work by drawing things and writing down his ideas. Of course, he designed all sorts of flying machines way before you could actually build something like that.

It’s time for the human race to enter the solar system.

I’m not a futurist.

The usual method of finding a little dongly thing that actually matches a gizmo I want to use is to go and buy another one, at a price that can physically drive the air from your body.

I love inventing names, but I also collect unusual names, so that I can look through my notebook and choose one that suits a new character.

There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.

When ideas fail, words come in very handy.