If you want to make beautiful music, you must play the black and the white notes together.

The more in harmony with yourself you are, the more joyful you are and the more faithful you are. Faith is not to disconnect you from reality – it connects you to reality.

If you hear Anarchy in the UK today your hair stands on end. It gives you the shivers.

Lyrics are always misleading because they make people think that that’s what the music is about.

Editing is now the easiest thing on earth to do, and all the things that evolved out of word processing – ‚Oh, let’s put that sentence there, let’s get rid of this‘ – have become commonplace in films and music too.

The human race is governed by its imagination.

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

From the beginning of my rap career, since I was seen and heard, I always had a store.

It doesn’t bother me when people try to deconstruct my songs – because at least they’re looking at the lyrics, and paying attention to the way the story is told.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

I think that’s why I put my energy into making music. That’s how I get my thoughts out, instead of being crazy all the time.

I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.

A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

Through Kurt I saw the beauty of minimalism and the importance of music that’s stripped down.

Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no. That’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be president?

The poet, being an imitator like a painter or any other artist, must of necessity imitate one of three objects – things as they were or are, things as they are said or thought to be, or things as they ought to be. The vehicle of expression is language – either current terms or, it may be, rare words or metaphors.

Whatever is on the page is what I’m married to. I’m very prepared. I’m a thespian. I don’t like to improv. I don’t like to go off course ‚cause I think that’s where stuff happens. When you stick to the material ‚cause it’s written so well, that’s where the magic happens.

Nature is wont to hide herself.

Every artist wants something different out the game.

The poetry you read has been written for you, each of you – black, white, Hispanic, man, woman, gay, straight.

I try to devote my afternoons to making music in my home studio, but it’s a lot more fun hanging out with musicians and friends, and trying subtly to influence a band than making your own stuff.

I’m pretty sure in my older years, I’ll be doing old-time flavored folk-mountain music.

The Heads were the only band on that scene that had a groove.

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

I would like to see a future where artists think that they have a right to contemplate things like global warming.

I try to see the good in everybody, and I don’t care who people are as long as they’re themselves, whatever that is.

I love making new friends and I respect people for a lot of different reasons.

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

Honestly, I’d love to be remembered as one of the best to ever pick up a mic, but if I’m doing my part to lessen some racial tension I feel good about what I’m doing.

If it’s good music, it’s good music.

Joy in looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift.

Beauty is an outward gift, which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.

Nothing can be beautiful which is not true.

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.

We view things not only from different sides, but with different eyes; we have no wish to find them alike.

Sometimes I think that there’s a fine line between impressionistic and messy.

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

Writing and cafes are strongly linked in my brain.

America is known as a country that welcomes people to its shores. All kinds of people. The image of the Statue of Liberty with Emma Lazarus‘ famous poem. She lifts her lamp and welcomes people to the golden shore, where they will not experience prejudice because of the color of their skin, the religious faith that they follow.

I love inventing names, but I also collect unusual names, so that I can look through my notebook and choose one that suits a new character.

I have no interest in gender or race or anything like that. But everyone else is kind of, with their calculating – is this the exact right mix? I think that’s – to me it’s anti-comedy. It’s more about PC-nonsense.

All great art is the work of the whole living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul.

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.

I want to be an artist, not… a celluloid aphrodisiac.

One of the benefits of playing to small audiences in small clubs for a few years is that you’re allowed to fail.

I want people to follow their dreams, yes… but I’m not interested in telling young black kids how to be rappers… I want to show them that there’s so many other paths you can take, besides a rapper or basketball player.

The philosophical idea that there are no more distances, that we are all just one world, that we are all brothers, is such a drag! I like differences.

Every bad situation is a blues song waiting to happen.

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

If a man reaches the heart of his own religion, he has reached the heart of the others, too. There is only one God, and there are many paths to him.

I don’t think I’d ever make an album of just covers because I love writing my own music.

A letdown is worth a few songs. A heartbreak is worth a few albums.

Teach us that wealth is not elegance, that profusion is not magnificence, that splendor is not beauty.

I like being a writer.

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

Growing up, my grandmother did not want worldly music in the house. Then when I went out to California, I started listening to Spanish music, mostly Mexican music. But were I in Egypt, I would listen to the music of the people, or if I was in Italy, I’d listen to Italian music.

To the audience, it’s like I’m changing the subject every five seconds, but to me, my show’s almost like a 90-minute song that I know exactly. I wrote every note, and I know exactly where everything is.

Any good piece of material like Shakespeare ought to be open to reinterpretation.

The poor are discussed as this homogeneous mash, like porridge. The idea that they might be individuals, and be where they are for very different, diverse reasons, again seems to escape some people.

I don’t live for the accolades. I’m more so about the music. Making it, and putting it out. Those are the two best feelings.

So there’s no guarantee if you like the music you will empathize with the culture and the people who made it. It doesn’t necessarily happen. I think it can, but it doesn’t necessarily happen. Which is kind of a shame.