Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.

I like to choreograph and create and design the costumes and do it all and then step back and watch it and then move on to the next project.

When I started working on ambient music, my idea was to make music that was more like painting.

A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting.

The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most.

All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.

I’ve never been a very prolific person, so when creativity flows, it flows. I find myself scribbling on little notepads and pieces of loose paper, which results in a very small portion of my writings to ever show up in true form.

All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.

Writing and cafes are strongly linked in my brain.

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

Music helps me tell my story. That’s where I can really be heard. But there’s so much focus on the things that aren’t music.

In Hollywood the woods are full of people that learned to write but evidently can’t read. If they could read their stuff, they’d stop writing.

It would be a terrific innovation if you could get your mind to stretch a little further than the next wisecrack.

I design things to help people to hopefully express their personality.

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

I train and I go home, and when I’m home, I think about training. That’s my life every day, and that’s it.

A collection is not just one basic idea. It comes from something that is in the air, something you suddenly like and put down on paper and then work out.

I do some kind of work, whether writing or painting or recording, on a daily basis. And it’s so essential that when I’m involved in the actual process, my so-called ‚real life‘ becomes almost incidental, which becomes worrying.

Music comes to me more readily than words.

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

I think it’s fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tool we’ve ever created. They’re tools of communication, they’re tools of creativity, and they can be shaped by their user.

For a true writer, each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.

Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.

You need to think outside the box. You need to think differently if you want to sustain what, for me, is my peak performance: the very best that I can achieve as an athlete every day.

You have to stay faithful to what you’re working on.

Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.

All of my writing is God-given.

I never played with anything like toys.

While some doubted that connecting the world was actually important, we were building. While others doubted that this would be sustainable, you were forming lasting connections. We just cared more about connecting the world than anyone else. And we still do today.

It is better to imitate ancient than modern work.

I didn’t live at school, I lived where I could and studied what I enjoyed studying. I took what I wanted from that education but was making my first record at the same time. I don’t know anyone from school. I was just leading a different life. I was really interested in writing and other things.

Tell me I have to be somewhere, and I’ll be there 20 minutes early and stay there longer than anybody else. You hold up a lot of people if you’re not on time.

Men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work least, for their minds are occupied with their ideas and the perfection of their conceptions, to which they afterwards give form.

Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

Effective philanthropy requires a lot of time and creativity – the same kind of focus and skills that building a business requires.

I think, generally, I just cannot really envision life without writing and producing records and singing.

I want to thank The Beatles for almost single-handedly getting me out of writer’s block.

I made all my generals out of mud.

A man’s got to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book.

When you seek the presence of your creative Spirit and are filled with passion about virtually everything you undertake, you’ll successfully remove the roadblocks from your life and enjoy the active presence of Spirit.

If you are lucky enough to find something that you love, and you have a shot at being good at it, don’t stop, don’t put it down.

When you’re around me and really see that all I do is live and breathe for my work, it’s not strange, it’s just Gaga.

I’ve always felt toward the slightest scene, even if all I had to do in a scene was just to come in and say, ‚Hi,‘ that the people ought to get their money’s worth and that this is an obligation of mine, to give them the best you can get from me.

The way I approach this thing, when I started to get my head screwed on straight and really trying to make something of myself as an artist, when I was 19 or 20, it became more about function for me. Like, what is this song doing to you? What is the function of this type of artform? What is it doing?

If an idea isn’t exciting, you shouldn’t do it.

As a musician and a songwriter, it is an act of the ego to believe that other people might be interested in your point of view. But it is usually an empathetic nature that gets you going in the first place. Music keeps the heart porous in many ways.

I never think about myself as an artist working in this time. I think about it in macro.

I do my job like I breathe.

It is a rare mind indeed that can render the hitherto non-existent blindingly obvious. The cry ‚I could have thought of that‘ is a very popular and misleading one, for the fact is that they didn’t, and a very significant and revealing fact it is too.

When I am working on a book or a story, I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you, and it is cool or cold, and you come to your work and warm as you write.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

My style influences my music and everything around me.

Security is, I would say, our top priority because for all the exciting things you will be able to do with computers – organizing your lives, staying in touch with people, being creative – if we don’t solve these security problems, then people will hold back.

When I’m inspired, I get excited because I can’t wait to see what I’ll come up with next.

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.

The true artist is not proud: he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly how far he is from the goal, and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun.

I need drama in my life to keep making music.

I really started writing music to challenge myself, to see what I could write.

If you only believe that you’re an artist when you have a big advance in your pocket and a single coming out, I would say that’s quite soulless. You have to have a sense of your own greatness and your own ability from a very deep place inside you. I am the one with the litmus test in my hands of what people need to hear next.

When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That’s when you can get more creative in solving problems.

Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.