A song has to take on character, shape, body and influence people to an extent that they use it for their own devices. It must affect them not just as a song, but as a lifestyle.

Music is a really great creative tool for me, for different roles.

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.

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

Hundreds of people who’ve never written before send in ‚Dr. Who‘ scripts. They may have good ideas, but what they fail to realise is that writing for TV is incredibly complicated. They have no idea how difficult it is and what the financial commitment is.

One of the things people don’t really recognise about the similarities between country and hip-hop is that they’re celebrations of pride in a lifestyle.

If people take anything from my music, it should be motivation to know that anything is possible as long as you keep working at it and don’t back down.

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.

My interest in creating anything is that it be useful.

Substitute ‚damn‘ every time you’re inclined to write ‚very‘; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

The people in my songs are all me.

The money in politics is a cash cow for the media.

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.

Write injuries in dust, benefits in marble.

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.

A man is more frank and sincere with his emotions than a woman. We girls, I’m afraid, have a tendency to hide our feelings.

My priority is my books, at least at this point. What I have to do is write the narrative of this time.

Art! Who comprehends her? With whom can one consult concerning this great goddess?

I’m filthy rich!

Artists are losing the choice to use film. People have a love for it – the grain, how it feels, the texture.

I welcome and seek your ideas, but do not bring me small ideas; bring me big ideas to match our future.

I am who I am today because of my mother.

With music, you often don’t have to translate it. It just affects you, and you don’t know why.

I never went to rock concerts when I was a kid. I didn’t see any rock & roll bands. I had posters on my wall. I had Beatles records.

I mean Facebook is no longer a company, it’s a country. 2 billion users. It can influence what we think, what we believe, how we vote, what we buy, even how we feel.

If I make music and people hate it, you know, whatever. I’ll die someday, and one day, they will too.

I don’t set out to write about spirituality; I am free to do something different every time.

I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.

I get so excited when a song I wrote that’s very personal to me goes No. 1 and I look down and see people singing the words back to me.

The problem is when that fun stuff becomes the habit. And I think that’s what’s happened in our culture. Fast food has become the everyday meal.

I’ve gotten used to being Frank Ocean.

I could imagine at a certain age, when I have no vocal cords left, that I would find a young man who could sing my parts for me. But I don’t see why I would stop.

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.

Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.

I found music to be the therapy of choice. I guess it is for a lot of people.

In America there’s no way I can make the kind of movie I like to make.

Remember that your imagination is yours and yours alone. You have the inborn capacity to use it in any way that you choose. No one else is responsible for your imagination. Anything placed in your imagination and held there ultimately becomes your reality.

The power of imagination makes us infinite.

There’s an ecstatic side to writing. It’s like jazz. It just has a life.

There are certain sounds that I’ve found work well in nearly any context. Their function is not so much musical as spatial: they define the edges of the territory of the music.

If it weren’t for the Beatles, I would not be a musician.

Don’t be a writer; it’s a terrible way to live your life. There’s nothing to be gained from it but poverty and obscurity and solitude. So if you have a taste for all those things, which means that you really are burning to do it, then go ahead and do it. But don’t expect anything from anybody.

Those who have been writing literature have not been writing life.

I don’t think the Christian Right dominates America in the way some in the media believe they do.

I’ve always felt that what I have going for me is not my imagination, because everyone has an imagination. What I have is a relentlessly controlled imagination. What looks like wild invention is actually quite carefully calculated.

When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily I should have been in that band – or at least in a Pixies cover band.

Sometimes I do need to go to karaoke, sometimes I need to relax.

Music is always a commentary on society.

All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy. What right have we then to depreciate imagination.

There’s no formula.

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.

Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them.

U2’s best work has always been when we didn’t know what we’re doing.

I never called my work an ‚art‘. It’s part of show business, the business of building entertainment.

I cry very easily. It can be a movie, a phone conversation, a sunset – tears are words waiting to be written.

And later, if I ever felt that I was getting swept away by the craziness of being in a band, well, I’d go back to Virginia.

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

All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.

I have been influenced in my thinking by both west and east.

Just because you like my stuff doesn’t mean I owe you anything.

Helped are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conception and realize a partnership in the creation of the Universe that keeps them responsible and cheerful.