An unimaginative person can neither be reverent or kind.

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.

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

The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

Music will never go away, and I will never stop making music; it’s just what capacity or what arena you decide to do it.

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.

Teach me to feel another’s woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, that mercy show to me.

It usually helps me write by reading – somehow the reading gear in your head turns the writing gear.

I enjoy singing my songs in front of people. I enjoy being involved in making the artwork for albums and stupid stuff like that.

Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats – maybe it’s imperative that we encounter the defeats – but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. Human beings are more alike than unalike.

I always had a knack for improvisation. I can write down the notes I play, but never really had a proper academic musical background. I suppose I’m blessed and cursed by the fact I have that freedom.

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.

Objects in pictures should so be arranged as by their very position to tell their own story.

It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one’s life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than ‚try to be a little kinder.‘

Indeed, it is as important to learn how to receive a blessing as it is to be willing to give one.

I have a son, who is my heart. A wonderful young man, daring and loving and strong and kind.

Real art has been… what’s the word? Kidnapped? No, that’s not it. But, OK, kidnapped by business.

Ideas can be life-changing. Sometimes all you need to open the door is just one more good idea.

The problem is that at a lot of big companies, process becomes a substitute for thinking. You’re encouraged to behave like a little gear in a complex machine. Frankly, it allows you to keep people who aren’t that smart, who aren’t that creative.

The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake.

One of the interesting things about having little musical knowledge is that you generate surprising results sometimes; you move to places you wouldn’t if you knew better.

You can tell alot about a fellow’s character by his way of eating jellybeans.

No person who is well bred, kind and modest is ever offensively plain; all real deformity means want for manners or of heart.

The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.

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.

If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge 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.

There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love. From its springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.

I’m rather kind of old school, thinking that when an artist does his work, it’s no longer his… I just see what people make of it.

When everything works best, it’s not because you chose writing but because writing chose you. It’s when you’re mad with it, it’s when it’s stuffed in your ears, your nostrils, under your fingernails. It’s when there’s no hope but that.

The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.

Love is easy, and I love writing. You can’t resist love. You get an idea, someone says something, and you’re in love.

To see things in the seed, that is genius.

Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.

For an author, the nice characters aren’t much fun. What you want are the screwed up characters. You know, the characters that are constantly wondering if what they are doing is the right thing, characters that are not only screwed up but are self-tapping screws. They’re doing it for themselves.

Errors are not in the art but in the artificers.

Sporadic thoughts will pop into my head and I’ll have to go write something down, and the next thing you know I’ve written a whole song in an hour.

We have the resources to build room for a trillion humans in this solar system, and when we have a trillion humans, we’ll have a thousand Einsteins and a thousand Mozarts. It will be a way more interesting place to live.

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

For a tear is quickly dried, especially when shed for the misfortunes of others.

Humor has bailed me out of more tight situations than I can think of. If you go with your instincts and keep your humor, creativity follows. With luck, success comes, too.

Any man may easily do harm, but not every man can do good to another.

Stories surge up out of nowhere, and if they feel compelling, you follow them. You let them unfold inside you and see where they are going to lead.

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.

There is no great genius without some touch of madness.

As for our great King, when we venture into His presence, let us have a purpose there. Let us beware of playing at praying; it is insolence toward God.

Wherever you write is supposed to be a little bit of a refuge, a place where you can get away from the world. The more closed in you are, the more you’re forced back on your own imagination.

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

With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.

You should treat a muse like a fairy.

Art is going to make a bigger comeback than ever. That’s the upside to things getting challenging.

You have to be practical. So every time I say, if you want to write a novel you have to be practical, people get bored. They are disappointed. They are expecting a more dynamic, creative, artistic thing to say. What I want to say is: you have to be practical.

You ask me if I keep a notebook to record my great ideas. I’ve only ever had one.

America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres.

If I waited for perfection… I would never write a word.

Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.

History is present in all my novels. And whether I am directly talking about the sociological moment or just immersing my character in the environment, I am very aware of it.

It may be that the most striking thing about members of my literary generation in retrospect will be that we were allowed to say absolutely anything without fear of punishment.

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.