A song has to take on character, shape, body and influence people to an extent that they use it for their own devices. It must affect them not just as a song, but as a lifestyle.

I’m not one icon. I’m every icon. I’m an icon that is made out of all the colors on the palette at every time. I have no restrictions. No restrictions.

You can write a short story in two hours. Two hours a day, you have a novel in a year.

Young people are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and more fit for new projects than for settled business.

Good thinkers always prime the pump of ideas. They always look for things to get the thinking process started, because what you put in always impacts what comes out.

I own a ’66 Jaguar. That’s the guitar I polish, and baby – I refuse to let anyone touch it when I jump into the crowd.

Ninety percent of all music is always crap, and when too many people decide they’re going to have guitar bands, then ninety percent of them are going to be crap. It’s just a given law.

A writer of fiction is really… a congenital liar who invents from his own knowledge or that of other men.

I don’t think that a leader can control, to any great extent, his destiny. Very seldom can he step in and change the situation if the forces of history are running in another direction.

I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?

I don’t sing because I’m happy; I’m happy because I sing.

My father moved to Hawaii from Brooklyn and my mother came there as a child from the Philippines. They met at a show where my dad was playing percussion. My mom was a hula dancer.

I’ve read a lot of really great characters in some really crappy stories, where I said, like, ‚Boy I could shine here, but the story sucks.‘ I don’t want to be part of that.

He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.

For just when ideas fail, a word comes in to save the situation.

I kept writing not because I felt I was so good, but because I felt they were so bad, including Shakespeare, all those. The stilted formalism, like chewing cardboard.

My mother, I suppose, is still a main figure in my life because her life was so sad and unfair, and she so brave, but also because she was determined to make me into the Sunday-school-recitation little girl I was, from the age of seven or so, fighting not to be.

Like anything else that happens on its own, the act of writing is beyond currency. Money is great stuff to have, but when it comes to the act of creation, the best thing is not to think of money too much. It constipates the whole process.

I’m not claiming divinity. I’ve never claimed purity of soul. I’ve never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can… But I still believe in peace, love and understanding.

I’ve been a huge fan of Chris Martin forever; it’d be awesome to work with him. He’s really kind, and he’s been really encouraging when we’ve met.

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.

When you write your first book aged 25 or so, you have 25 years of experience, albeit much of it juvenile experience. The second book comes after an extra year sitting in bookshops. Pretty soon, you begin to run on empty.

I liberate minds with my music. That’s more important than liberating a few people from apartheid or whatever.

Lettin‘ the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier ‚n puttin‘ it back in.

Tupac, Biggie, Jay. Your usual suspects. These were the people that was played in my household.

I wanted to be famous for my music and my talent, and I always wished I could cut it out when I left the stage.

It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.

It seemed like a very small possibility for me to become an artist. I didn’t have the need to be on the stage; I didn’t feel the need to be heard. I just needed to write.

If there’s not drama and negativity in my life, all my songs will be really wack and boring or something.

My mother is a singer, my sisters all sing, my uncles are incredible singers and guitar players, so it’s just kind of been like my habitat.

I only type every third night. I have no plan. My mind is a blank. I sit down. The typewriter gives me things I don’t even know I’m working on. It’s a free lunch. A free dinner. I don’t know how long it is going to continue, but so far there is nothing easier than writing.

If you leave the smallest corner of your head vacant for a moment, other people’s opinions will rush in from all quarters.

I think some people would love to be able to make the clothes I make – and of course, I do influence them, but they keep simplifying, and minimalism doesn’t quite work.

The day when I am no more than a writer I shall cease to be a writer.

I let people fill in the blanks on their own. If they want to think about their ex, that’s fine. If they want to think about maybe who one of my exes is, then that’s fine. And it might not be right, because I’m the only one who knows what these songs are really about. It’s the one shred of privacy I have in the matter.

All I really had was a suitcase and my drums. So I took them up to Seattle and hoped it would work.

Environment is very important to me. Sometimes I have to perform during the day for festivals, and my music does not work in the daytime. It is nighttime music.

I can operate in half-a-song format.

I believe that thrift is essential to well-ordered living.

I’ve rarely seen video screens used well in a music concert.

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.

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

Imagination is a poor matter when it has to part company with understanding.

I have to be on such a strict diet constantly.

When I do listen to music, I’m more prone to listen to the people I’ve always listened to: George Jones, Otis Redding, Alison Krauss and Emmylou Harris.

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.

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.

My role in society, or any artist’s or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.

Sometimes, women in families put themselves last until it manifests itself in their own health.

It’s not true I had nothing on, I had the radio on.

I think the reason my stories have been so successful is that I have a strong sense of metaphor.

No one tells me what to do with my music. Real. My mom doesn’t tell what to say, how is someone else going to?

Is Wagner a human being at all? Is he not rather a disease? He contaminates everything he touches – he has made music sick.

Painting, I think it’s like jazz.

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.

Habit converts luxurious enjoyments into dull and daily necessities.

You can write a song about being in love with someone, but you don’t have to be in love with anyone.

You listen to the radio and all the songs sound the same, from 8 in the morning to 12.

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.

If my films don’t show a profit, I know I’m doing something right.

I listen to music that is of our time and I just get angry.