And as a writer, one of the things that I’ve always been interested in doing is actually invading your comfort space. Because that’s what we’re supposed to do. Get under your skin, and make you react.

Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart.

I might just write a novel next. I don’t know!

I’ve been asking myself: ‚Why put together these things – CDs, albums?‘ The answer I came up with is, well, sometimes it’s artistically viable. It’s not just a random collection of songs. Sometimes the songs have a common thread, even if it’s not obvious or even conscious on the artists‘ part.

I often get ideas for songs on the tour bus at odd times. Like at 6am when no one is around, I’d just write.

I guess I’m just inspired to tell stories.

When I write about a 15-year old, I jump, I return to the days when I was that age. It’s like a time machine. I can remember everything. I can feel the wind. I can smell the air. Very actually. Very vividly.

I don’t intend to stop making music.

I do sometimes look back at things I’ve written in the past, and think, ‚I just don’t remember being the person who wrote that.‘

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.

Originality is a thing we constantly clamour for, and constantly quarrel with.

It is in this power of saying everything, and yet saying nothing too plainly, that the perfection of art consists.

There is good and mediocre writing within every genre.

I like having my hands in the clay. I like the movie-making process.

When art dresses in worn-out material it is most easily recognized as art.

It is better to create than to learn! Creating is the essence of life.

Like any creative human being, I would like a bit more control so that it would be a little easier for me when the director says, ‚One tear, right now,‘ that one tear would pop out.

People are more aware now of cities and of different ways of life. I suppose the writing I do is a bit in the past, and I’m not sure it’s the kind of writing I would do if I were starting now.

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

If you’re nice to me I’ll never write anything bad about you.

Sometimes I get the start of a story from a memory, an anecdote, but that gets lost and is usually unrecognizable in the final story.

I’m a singer, a writer and an actress – when I find something that I feel good enough about doing.

I can say I’d honestly rather be happy than have 30 to 40 songs that I’ve written about these thrilling, exciting, horrible, unhappy times.

There are really two core principles at play here. There’s giving people a voice so that people can express their opinions. Then, there’s keeping the community safe, which I think is really important. We’re not gonna let people plan violence or attack each other or do bad things.

There are half a dozen subjects that I return to time and time again, and that doesn’t bother me. Because most of my favorite writers do that, to hunt down the same topic or theme from different directions each time.

I have Dalinian thought: the one thing the world will never have enough of is the outrageous.

I was saving the name of ‚Geisel‘ for the Great American Novel.

Educationists should build the capacities of the spirit of inquiry, creativity, entrepreneurial and moral leadership among students and become their role model.

But innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about a problem.

I was once a journalist. And I think of myself as a journalist, and that’s it. You tell the truth. I even wrote a book called ‚The Truth‘.

My lyrics are generated by various peculiar processes. Very random and similar to automatic writing.

Many are they who have a taste and love for drawing, but no talent; and this will be discernible in boys who are not diligent and never finish their drawings with shading.

I remember very little about writing the first series of ‚Hitchhiker’s.‘ It’s almost as if someone else wrote it.

Some of our earliest writing, in cuneiform, was about who owes what.

I feel that when you care about your music, taking risks is something you should do to keep things exciting.

Originality is really important.

You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.

You go to a festival, you know you’re not going to play all new material at a festival. The audience is not there for that. I’ve made that mistake, but you find out pretty quickly.

Poetry comes from the highest happiness or the deepest sorrow.

Although I write screenplays, I don’t think I’m a very good writer.

I think I work much harder on the children’s books. I suppose I enjoy that. I find it interesting that although there are more than 30 books in the Discworld series, it is the four that were written for children which have won the awards. I’ve never been quite certain why this is.

They say it is the first step that costs the effort. I do not find it so. I am sure I could write unlimited ‚first chapters‘. I have indeed written many.

Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works.

It would be an egregious mistake to ever refer to me in the same breath as most of the people I write about.

The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.

I write songs that are like diary entries. I have to do it in order to feel sane.

Deep down, I know I have this intuition or instinct that a lot of creative people have, that their demons are also what make them create.

A word after a word after a word is power.

Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.

I think it does Discworld good if I don’t write about it all the time: sometimes you have to get it out of your system.

You know those things that you throw the twigs into and it spits them out? That’s what I do. The branches are like life, and I throw them into my head and some of it comes out as humor.

Music has the power to inspire the world.

I’ve tried to reduce profanity but I reduced so much profanity when writing the book that I’m afraid not much could come out. Perhaps we will have to consider it simply as a profane book and hope that the next book will be less profane or perhaps more sacred.

It is better to imitate ancient than modern work.

Perhaps when music has been shouting for so long, a quieter voice seems attractive.

Talking is a hydrant in the yard and writing is a faucet upstairs in the house. Opening the first takes the pressure off the second.

In art the best is good enough.

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.

The human race is governed by its imagination.

When I’m in the studio, I’m looking for creativity I haven’t matched yet, a feeling I haven’t felt. It’s a high.

Pound’s crazy. All poets are. They have to be. You don’t put a poet like Pound in the loony bin.