Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.

Sometimes I’ll jot a clever turn of phrase down. Sometimes I’ll just remember it.

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

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.

Art is not a thing; it is a way.

Humanity at the centre of the primates, Homo sapiens, in humanity, is the end-product of a gradual work of creation, the successive sketches for which still surround us on every side.

If I weren’t performing, I’d be a beauty editor or a therapist. I love creativity, but I also love to help others. My mother was a hairstylist, and they listen to everyone’s problems – like a beauty therapist!

The true art of memory is the art of attention.

The man who has no imagination has no wings.

A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians.

The secret to the movie business, or any business, is to get a good education in a subject besides film – whether it’s history, psychology, economics, or architecture – so you have something to make a movie about. All the skill in the world isn’t going to help you unless you have something to say.

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

You’d be waiting 30 or 40 years for me to build a table. I have more than two left hands.

Art is not a treasure in the past or an importation from another land, but part of the present life of all living and creating peoples.

My stories run up and bite me on the leg – I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.

Surrealism had a great effect on me because then I realised that the imagery in my mind wasn’t insanity. Surrealism to me is reality.

College isn’t the place to go for ideas.

Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men.

Creative people don’t behave very well generally. If you’re looking for examples of good relationships in show business, you’re gonna be depressed real fast. I don’t have time for anything else right now but work and my daughter. She’s my first priority.

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.

Arrange whatever pieces come your way.

Every collaboration helps you grow. With Bowie, it’s different every time. I know how to create settings, unusual aural environments. That inspires him. He’s very quick.

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

The thing about the 600 words, I mean some day, you can do a very, very, very hard day’s work and not write a word, just revising, or you would scribble a few words.

I do probably 60 concerts a year in the States. And I go out to clubs in the week. I’m doing new stuff all the time.

There were people who incorporated melody before me, but I would deem myself the first person to successfully rap and sing.

Don’t you love it that Prince doesn’t use Twitter? Don’t you think he’s somewhere on a unicorn?

If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.

The reproduction of mankind is a great marvel and mystery. Had God consulted me in the matter, I should have advised him to continue the generation of the species by fashioning them out of clay.

Writing a song is so personal. You have to have trust in someone you’re working with; otherwise, you’re not gonna come out with something that’s really you.

Romantic art deals with the exception and with the individual. Good people, belonging as they do to the normal, and so, commonplace type, are artistically uninteresting.

The arts don’t exist in isolation.

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.

Imagination is a poor matter when it has to part company with understanding.

In my work, as a writer, I only photograph, in words, what I see.

A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.

Genius… means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.

I don’t see any boundaries between any of the art forms. I think they all inter-relate completely.

I’ll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there’s evidence of any thinking going on inside it.

The society based on production is only productive, not creative.

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

Young people can create beautiful things.

You don’t have to be scared of me, because I am loyal. Why are people so scared of creative ideas and so scared of truth? All I want to do is do good.

I feel like my music has become a lot of things. It’s hard to label the evolution, but I like there to be an evolution. I just like to paint with all different kinds of colors.

A record deal doesn’t make you an artist; you make yourself an artist.

The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art.

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.

See that the imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man.

I’m a huge fan of R. Kelly’s. He’s a musical genius and probably the most prolific artist of the generation before mine.

We must use time creatively.

Writing makes you feel that there is a reason to go on living. If I couldn’t write, I would stop breathing.

If you hear a voice within you say ‚you cannot paint,‘ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.

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

I don’t know how to function without music. When I’m not making it, I’m listening to it. It gives me courage and takes care of my mind.

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

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!

Real art is basic emotion. If a scene is handled with simplicity – and I don’t mean simple – it’ll be good, and the public will know it.

My focus is my art, and that’s what I love to do. I have to be really passionate in order to do something. I’ve turned down many things that I just didn’t believe in.

My role in society, or any artist’s or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.

I like Cardi B!

I felt I really wanted to back off from music completely and just work within the visual arts in some way. I started painting quite passionately at that time.