I cannot with any real integrity perform songs I’ve done for 25 years. I don’t need the money. What I need is to feel that I am not letting myself down as an artist and that I still have something to contribute.

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.

There’s always gonna be rock n‘ roll bands, there’s always gonna be kids that love rock n‘ roll records, and there will always be rock n‘ roll.

I alone of English writers have consciously set myself to make music out of what I may call the sound of sense.

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

I’m happy being myself, which I’ve never been before. I always hid in other people, or tried to find myself through the characters, or live out their lives, but I didn’t have those things in mine.

I just wanted to be a songwriter. I did really not like the sound of my own voice.

There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.

U2’s best work has always been when we didn’t know what we’re doing.

I’ve always felt toward the slightest scene, even if all I had to do in a scene was just to come in and say, ‚Hi,‘ that the people ought to get their money’s worth and that this is an obligation of mine, to give them the best you can get from me.

In this day and age, when you can use a machine or computer to simulate or emulate what people can do together, it still can’t replace the magic of four people in a room playing.

Science does not know its debt to imagination.

Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.

I draw from the crowd a lot.

You know, there are artists who are 35 and up that still make rap and that still works for them. I don’t know if I want to be that guy.

Paintings have a life of their own that derives from the painter’s soul.

Bad performances can happen and are not that serious – even with new players. You can’t, say, sell him, get a new one.

When the first big paycheque with ‚Dumb And Dumber‘ hit, I went: ‚Gosh, I wonder if this will affect my performance. Will I do a take and think, was that worth $7 million?‘ But that never happened. If anything, it made me rebel against that thing when people who get rich start playing it safe.

I really started writing music to challenge myself, to see what I could write.

The power of our thoughts may never be measured or appreciated, but it became obvious to me as a young boy that there was value and power in being aware of my thoughts and how I expressed myself.

I met India Arie, who is one of my favorite artists of all time. It was really sweet; I was broken up with a month before, and she stayed up texting me all night and was helping me through it. Her text message looks like a song of hers. She’s sort of become my fairy godmother.

Man becomes his most creative during war.

Unless I am both capable of and willing to reopen the wound every time I write a song, if I choose to not look inside myself to write music, I’m really not worth being called an artist at all.

Songwriting is my way of channeling my feelings and my thoughts. Not just mine, but the things I see, the people I care about. My head would explode if I didn’t get some of that stuff out.

The whole slacker generation totally didn’t apply to us musically.

The assumption is that your personal life has to be a mess to create, but how much chaos can you allow in before it takes over?

I don’t think of myself as an artist. I’m just a guy who can write.

Songs for me are like a message in a bottle. You send them out to the world, and maybe the person who you feel that way about will hear about it someday.

The sound and music are 50% of the entertainment in a movie.

All of my music is honest.

I was always interested in choreography – in making people think and feel something.

I am who I am. That’s why my friends and peers respect and appreciate me. I don’t change or cater my actions to fit my surroundings. I’m myself 24/7. People appreciate that.

Who I am on stage is very, very different to who I am in real life.

Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you’re a human being, you feel, you suffer. You’re gay, you’re sick, you’re nervous or whatever.

I’m a big fan of songs like Joe Cocker’s ‚You Are So Beautiful‘ and Eric Clapton’s ‚Wonderful Tonight‘ – songs that go straight to the point.

If you ever see young artists, and they’re not sounding good, they sound good. They’re good singers. They wouldn’t be where they are if they didn’t sound good. It’s their nerves. Any time you see your favorite artist, and he’s or she’s screwing up or not hitting those notes, it’s not because she can’t hit it or she can’t sing; he or she is scared.

It’s very unnatural to be someone for so many people. But of course it’s very nice.

There weren’t a lot of career opportunities in crazy-fast hardcore punk, so you didn’t have a lot of ambition, just the love and passion to play music with your friends.

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

Oh yes. I’m an actor, so I just learn my lines, and show up and do it. I gave it a little bit of thought.

I didn’t come to Hollywood. Hollywood came to me. A lot of people wish they could say the things I say. Everyone out here is so phony, it’s sickening.

People think you have to go through something to write about it, and you absolutely do not. You can write about, like, a shoe. It’s a story.

Rap music is the only vital form of music introduced since punk rock.

You have to dream intentionally. Most people dream a dream when they are asleep. But to be a writer, you have to dream while you are awake, intentionally.

Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervor.

There’s no formula.

I like the way the stories of my relationships sound to music more than the way they look in print, in gossip columns or in me talking about them in interviews. I think it’s a better way of telling the stories.

That terrible mood of depression of whether it’s any good or not is what is known as The Artist’s Reward.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

What makes a song last is real content from a mind that is thinking a little bit harder about certain things. A lot of artists don’t really think that hard.

I don’t even know how to speak up for myself, because I don’t really have a father who would give me the confidence or advice. And if you’re always the new kid, you never get a chance to adapt, so your confidence is just zilch.

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.

The bat is not a toy, it’s a weapon. It gives me everything in life, which helps me to do everything on the field.

I can get where some scientists would say comedians are crazy. What you have to understand: A lot of comedians are dealing with a dark passion. A lot of these are guys coming from a tumultuous life, including myself. Some people need outlets, a way to express yourself.

Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?

Basically, I live to do gigs.

Her body calculated to a millimeter to suggest a bud yet guarantee a flower.

It’s with bad sentiments that one makes good novels.

I don’t know how the rap game is, because I’m a fan of reality, and the rap game’s entertainment.

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

The child in you, like all children, loves to laugh, to be around people who can laugh at themselves and life. Children instinctively know that the more laughter we have in our lives, the better.