The arts have only ever interested a small minority of people, which acted as a kind of nursery to support artists.

I always had faith in my creative capacity.

I rely on other people every day of my life.

I alone of English writers have consciously set myself to make music out of what I may call the sound of sense.

It’s insane that, since the Beatles and Dylan, it’s assumed that all musicians should do everything themselves. It’s that ridiculous, teenage idea that when Mick Jagger sings, he’s telling you something about his own life. It’s so arrogant to think that people would want to know about it anyway!

The Public is merely a multiplied ‚me.‘

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.

Science does not know its debt to imagination.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

To all the musicians who are making reggaeton, let’s put some more effort into it and bring something new to the people!

I don’t think a song should be put in a category.

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.

I just genuinely feel that that’s what you do when you’re an artist: You stick up for the people around you.

The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men.

People wanted me to do a CD-ROM of ‚Hitchhiker’s,‘ and I thought, ‚No, no.‘ I didn’t want to just sort of reverse-engineer yet another thing from a book I’d already written. I think that the digital media are interesting enough in their own right to be worth originating something in.

Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone.

What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.

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.

These critics with the illusions they’ve created about artists – it’s like idol worship. They only like people when they’re on their way up… I cannot be on the way up again.

I hoped to be able to write a novel which would enable me to live on it while I wrote the next.

Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.

In the first book of my Discworld series, published more than 26 years ago, I introduced Death as a character; there was nothing particularly new about this – death has featured in art and literature since medieval times, and for centuries we have had a fascination with the Grim Reaper.

I don’t like to beat people down. They need to be lifted up.

It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.

My purpose is to make exciting music, and I feel like I’ll be doing that for the rest of my life, so there’s no pressure.

I can express myself.

My aim is to create a happy society with genuine friendship. Friendship between Tibetan and Chinese peoples is very essential.

A true friend encourages us, comforts us, supports us like a big easy chair, offering us a safe refuge from the world.

There are some loony people in this world!

It is a joy to be an artist, but it doesn’t mean very much unless that work is somehow useful in some way and contributes to others.

Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

No person who is not a great sculptor or painter can be an architect. If he is not a sculptor or painter, he can only be a builder.

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

Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.

Frankly, I mean, sometimes the interpretations I’ve seen on some of the songs that I’ve written are a lot more interesting than the input that I put in.

I want someone who can trust that my big hands are going to take care of them.

If I could write directly on a typewriter or a computer, I would do it. But keyboards have always intimidated me. I’ve never been able to think clearly with my fingers in that position. A pen is a much more primitive instrument. You feel that the words are coming out of your body and then you dig the words into the page.

Once you get a spice in your home, you have it forever. Women never throw out spices. The Egyptians were buried with their spices. I know which one I’m taking with me when I go.

I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.

I hate the idea of genres.

We live in a culture that relishes tearing others down. It’s ultimately more fulfilling, though, to help people reach their goals. Instead of feeling jealous, remember: If God did it for them, He can do it for you.

Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling.

And I wound up in New Orleans for all those years and it was a great place, really a catalyst creatively.

When you go on your Twitter or look down your Timeline and it’s all great positivity – I love that. But at the same time, it can really divert you from what your purpose is or what you’re trying to do. And I’ve seen artists get caught up in that.

I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.

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.

When people need love and understanding and support the most is when they deserve it the least.

In many ways, when you’re a Nobel peace laureate, you have an obligation to humankind, to society.

Old men are dangerous: it doesn’t matter to them what is going to happen to the world.

If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly than aesthetics will see its moral lesson. It will fill the cowardly with terror, and the unclean will see in it their own shame.

There can never be any stop to learn about different cultures by travelling to different places. And whatever comes your way, continue the healthy eating habits.

I think there are a number of things that you can do to encourage your kids‘ dreams, but I do believe in speaking by experience of having a lot of help along the way, stumbling in the past. We’ve all stumbled, and we certainly all deserve to get up and walk again.

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

We’re so immaturely cynical as a culture. We’re not wise enough to look at an institution like marriage and to really things about what it means and what it signifies. It signifies a place where people can tie the ropes of their lives together so that they’re stronger. It signifies a place where people can tell the truth to one another.

O, had I but followed the arts!

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.

There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families.

My kind of composing is more like the work of a gardener. The gardener takes his seeds and scatters them, knowing what he is planting but not quite what will grow where and when – and he won’t necessarily be able to reproduce it again afterwards either.

When ideas fail, words come in very handy.