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

I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create.

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

God wants to use you to make other people happy! And the happier you make others, the happier you will be because you reap what you sow.

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.

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.

We are motivated by a keen desire for praise, and the better a man is the more he is inspired by glory. The very philosophers themselves, even in those books which they write in contempt of glory, inscribe their names.

Errors are not in the art but in the artificers.

I’ve never had writer’s block.

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

If you love something – and there are things that I love – you do want more and more and more of it, but that’s not the way to produce good work.

You know, Nirvana used to start rehearsals with the three of us just jamming. For, like, a half an hour, just noise and freeform crap – and usually it was crap. But sometimes things would come from it, and some songs on Nevermind came from that, and ‚Heart Shaped Box‘ and stuff on ‚In Utero‘ just happened that way.

Anything that encourages people to pick up an instrument and play, I’m fully behind.

Keep a good attitude and do the right thing even when it’s hard. When you do that you are passing the test. And God promises you your marked moments are on their way.

Software constraints are only confining if you use them for what they’re intended to be used for.

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.

I’m wallowing in the whole idea of just being a guy out there with a band, with songs. It’s a real enjoyment.

Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pocket. But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past.

Science fiction is any idea that occurs in the head and doesn’t exist yet, but soon will, and will change everything for everybody, and nothing will ever be the same again. As soon as you have an idea that changes some small part of the world you are writing science fiction. It is always the art of the possible, never the impossible.

It was patriotism, not communism, that inspired me.

The most miraculous process is watching a song go from a tiny idea in the middle of the night to something that 55,000 people are singing back to you.

I always like to create things that get attention. It used to be a problem when I wasn’t famous. Now, I can do whatever I want and people have to accept it.

Love is the attempt to form a friendship inspired by beauty.

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

Fiction is such a world of freedom, it’s wonderful. If you want someone to fly, they can fly.

The thing about being an artist today is you get to develop right in front of people’s eyes before you even put out an album.

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.

Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life.

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.

I love making music. That’s what I love to do. So I don’t feel like there’s any need to take a break unless I want to.

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.

My imagination is a twisted place.

Let us be shy no longer. Let us go to our strength. Let us offer hope. Let us tell the world that a new age is not only possible but probable.

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.

A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.

In every walk of life, you must have leaders. An education in the spiritual world, in the labor field, in the agricultural field, we must have leaders.

I can express myself.

Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.

The secret to the movie business, or any business, is to get a good education in a subject besides film – whether it’s history, psychology, economics, or architecture – so you have something to make a movie about. All the skill in the world isn’t going to help you unless you have something to say.

Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.

I’ve had quite a lot of luck with dreams. I’ve often awoken in the night with a phrase or even a whole song in my head.

I wanted to write.

I kinda like the idea of having an album that’s all me.

I have fun with ideas; I play with them.

My mother was and will always remain my greatest hero.

I am an example of what is possible when girls from the very beginning of their lives are loved and nurtured by people around them. I was surrounded by extraordinary women in my life who taught me about quiet strength and dignity.

While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future.

It’s all make believe, isn’t it?

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

You don’t have to be scared of me, because I am loyal. Why are people so scared of creative ideas and so scared of truth? All I want to do is do good.

I think you can give a pure artistic product if you understand how to build your own industry.

The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.

Whenever I’m around some who is modest, I think, ‚Run like hell and all of fire.‘ You don’t want modesty, you want humility.

While we may lose heart, we never have to lose hope.

Stand a little less between me and the sun.

I just have a relationship with my imagination. It’s like my friend, almost.

I think writing really helps you heal yourself. I think if you write long enough, you will be a healthy person. That is, if you write what you need to write, as opposed to what will make money, or what will make fame.

I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse.

Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another.