In the future, you won’t buy artists‘ works; you’ll buy software that makes original pieces of ‚their‘ works, or that recreates their way of looking at things. You could buy a Shostakovich box, or you could buy a Brahms box. You might want some Shostakovich slow-movement-like music to be generated. So then you use that box.

The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure.

I used to like to set different film clips to classical music, not even my own songs, but make little movies.

You can draw inspiration from anything. If you’re a good storyteller, you can take a dirty look somebody gives you, or if a guy you used to have flirtations with starts dating a new girl, or somebody you’re casually talking to says something that makes you so mad – you can create an entire scenario around that.

I’ve got incredible support from my wife and family and people around me. I’ve got great people around me who handle anything on the outside, business-wise, who help free me up to create in my job.

Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.

I think a poet is anybody who wouldn’t call himself a poet.

I put out one album one week, and I’m already worried about the next one. I feel a lot of emotion throughout the course of a day. But not to the point where you need to be worried about me.

It’s the way I study – to understand something by trying to work it out or, in other words, to understand something by creating it. Not creating it one hundred percent, of course; but taking a hint as to which direction to go but not remembering the details. These you work out for yourself.

I don’t care if people think I am an overactor, as long as they enjoy what I do. People who think that would call Van Gogh an overpainter.

See that the imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man.

I don’t think a song should be put in a category.

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

No art can be noble which is incapable of expressing thought, and no art is capable of expressing thought which does not change.

I don’t tell anyone how to write and no one tells me.

I respect Drake not only as a creative person but as a business mind as well. I think Drake’s important.

Art is the proper task of life.

As the births of living creatures are at first ill-shapen, so are all innovations, which are the births of time.

Sometimes I’ve called writing a disease. If so, I’m glad that it caught me.

Imagination decides everything.

An author writes a book, and that’s the book at that point. And if the author writes the book again, then somehow something has gone wrong, if you see what I mean.

All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.

Helped are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conception and realize a partnership in the creation of the Universe that keeps them responsible and cheerful.

Every one of my regrets has produced a song I’m proud of.

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

Each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure – that of being Salvador Dali.

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.

I feel that when you care about your music, taking risks is something you should do to keep things exciting.

Well, Art is Art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know.

Most poets are young simply because they have not been caught up. Show me an old poet, and I’ll show you, more often than not, either a madman or a master… it’s when you begin to lie to yourself in a poem in order simply to make a poem that you fail. That is why I do not rework poems.

There’s not some idea I’m going to create a work that’s going to change everybody’s consciousness.

I’m just writing, writing, writing. I keep these tablets on me until I’m inspired to go back in and make the music. I never take a break from my pen, because I pride myself on that.

Give a critic an inch, he’ll write a play.

I really, truly believe that writing comes out of the body; of course, the mind is working as well, but it’s a double thing and that doubleness is united. I mean, you can’t separate persona from psyche; you just can’t do it.

Yet, it is true, poetry is delicious; the best prose is that which is most full of poetry.

Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things.

Begin noticing and being careful about keeping your imagination free of thoughts that you do not wish to materialize. Instead, initiate a practice of filling your creative thoughts to overflow with ideas and wishes that you fully intend to manifest. Honor your imaginings regardless of others seeing them as crazy or impossible.

I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success… such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.

I’m a songwriter. Everything affects me.

There’s no one way to be creative. Any old way will work.

Somebody once asked me what my theory of life was, and I said, ‚Don’t try.‘ That fits the writing, too. I don’t try; I just type.

Then, when I’m in these relationships with people who are also creative, or creative in their own way, what happens is the attraction is initially there and it’s all unicorns and rainbows. And then they hate me.

Microsoft Research has a thing called the Sense Cam that, as you walk around, it’s taking photos all the time. And the software will filter and find the ones that are interesting without having to think, ‚Let’s get out the camera and get that shot.‘ You just have that, and software helps you pick what you want.

I never look at my watch when I’m sketching!

Wherever you write is supposed to be a little bit of a refuge, a place where you can get away from the world. The more closed in you are, the more you’re forced back on your own imagination.

I don’t set out to write about spirituality; I am free to do something different every time.

I’ve never written a song in my life. It’s all a big hoax.

I used to consider the listener. But now I’m in a space where, if I’m not inspired, I can’t really do the music. I can’t feel it.

Even if you have nothing to write, write and say so.

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

I don’t see any boundaries between any of the art forms. I think they all inter-relate completely.

I like having my hands in the clay. I like the movie-making process.

Innovation can only occur where you can breathe free.

As a novelist, you could say that I am dreaming while I am awake, and every day I can continue with yesterday’s dream. Because it is a dream, there are so many contradictions and I have to adjust them to make the story work. But, in principle, the original dream does not change.

With genetic engineering, we will be able to increase the complexity of our DNA, and improve the human race. But it will be a slow process, because one will have to wait about 18 years to see the effect of changes to the genetic code.

One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.

Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. Of course, I could be wrong.

The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected.

Art’s everything we hope life would be, a lot of times.

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.