I subscribe to the myth that an artist’s creativity comes from torment. Once that’s fixed, what do you draw on?

I couldn’t have written things like ‚Low‘ and ‚Heroes,‘ those particular albums, if it hadn’t have been for Berlin and the kind of atmosphere I felt there.

Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.

I hate the idea of genres.

Fires can’t be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men. Enthusiasm in our daily work lightens effort and turns even labor into pleasant tasks.

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

One of the things you’re doing when you make art, apart from entertaining yourself and other people, is trying to see what ways of working feel good, what feels right.

From things that have happened and from things as they exist and from all things that you know and all those you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive, and you make it alive, and if you make it well enough, you give it immortality.

People ask me where I got my singing style. I didn’t copy my style from anybody.

Labor gives birth to ideas.

How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done!

I wish I could play bass like Larry Graham or Bootsy Collins. My God, I’d give up just about everything else for that.

If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.

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.

Good ideas are free – or at least they should be.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

I’m always interested in what you can do with technology that people haven’t thought of doing yet.

Music is this divine thing, the closest that we can get to something divine. It’s like this instinct we all own, and some of us have found a way to hear that music and write it down and share it with people.

I’m not in control of my muse. My muse does all the work.

Historian: an unsuccessful novelist.

I think my biggest musical hero growing up was probably Ian MacKaye. He set a great example for all of us local musicians. Still, to this day, I see him as the best example of a right-on musician.

We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.

Sometimes you need faith and victory spoken over your life. Words have created power. When you receive them into your spirit, they can ignite seeds of increase on the inside.

Any artist, the work you do, if it’s a painting or if it’s a performance, you hope it translates to a common denominator with the people that they see something in their own life in there. Or they see something in somebody else’s life. That’s what’s fun about sharing art.

I’ve always written songs the same way. You learn different tricks – you learn craft, you learn structure, all that – as you go.

Every day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music and rings the whole day through, and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life march, as you will.

The thing that makes my clothes really different is that, number one, they are really great designs; they’re not tacky; they are very professional; the design is made from lots of decisions.

I suppose for me as an artist it wasn’t always just about expressing my work; I really wanted, more than anything else, to contribute in some way to the culture that I was living in. It just seemed like a challenge to move it a little bit towards the way I thought it might be interesting to go.

I decided to sell my drawings. However, I didn’t want people to buy my drawings because the professor of physics isn’t supposed to be able to draw – isn’t that wonderful – so I made up a false name.

It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go.

Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people.

Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.

No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time a steady eye.

Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow.

The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one: dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation. I don’t think I solve problems in my poetry; I think I uncover the problems.

In a magazine, one can get – from cover to cover – 15 to 20 different ideas about life and how to live it.

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

What I have is a malevolent curiosity. That’s what drives my need to write and what probably leads me to look at things a little askew. I do tend to take a different perspective from most people.

Artistic temperament is the disease that afflicts amateurs.

I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies.

An artist needn’t be a clergyman or a churchwarden, but he certainly must have a warm heart for his fellow men.

Susceptibility to the highest forces is the highest genius.

I have so many designs and video ideas and lyrics in my head, so I always try to be productive.

I like the idea of working in different genres and transcending genres and hopefully finding success, and ultimately make movies people like.

Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.

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.

I booked my first studio at like 12 or 13. Somewhere in that season of my life, singing along with the radio became me wanting to be on radio, you know. And writing Langston Hughes replica poems became me wanting to write like Stevie Wonder.

Everything in the world exists to end up in a book.

Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm.

I do have motivation. A lot of motivation.

Those who create are rare; those who cannot are numerous. Therefore, the latter are stronger.

I would have a workshop attached to every school, and one hour a day given up to the teaching of simple decorative arts. It would be a golden hour to the children.

I didn’t watch ‚The A-Team‘ movie. I’m an artist. You can’t re-paint a Rembrandt. You can’t duplicate that; I don’t care who you get.

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.

As our case is new, we must think and act anew.

I want people to draw strength from me.

When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.

Few people have the imagination for reality.

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.