Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning.

I used to consider the listener. But now I’m in a space where, if I’m not inspired, I can’t really do the music. I can’t feel it.

Sometimes you stumble across a few chords that put you in a reflective place.

I loved writing for kids, I loved talking to children about what I’d written, I don’t want to leave that behind.

Knowledge is a polite word for dead but not buried imagination.

I like George Carlin’s jokes. I like his humor. He’s one of my heroes, and I like what he did with talking about everyday things.

I write screenplays in the middle of the night.

That is how you get to be a writer, incidentally: you feel somehow marginal, somehow slightly off-balance all the time.

You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.

I spent much of my childhood in northern Quebec, and often there was no radio, no television – there wasn’t a lot to entertain us. When it rained, I stayed inside reading, writing, drawing.

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you. Or, rather, you can if you will be ruthless enough about it. But the best writing is certainly when you are in love.

Science fiction is any idea that occurs in the head and doesn’t exist yet, but soon will, and will change everything for everybody, and nothing will ever be the same again. As soon as you have an idea that changes some small part of the world you are writing science fiction. It is always the art of the possible, never the impossible.

I’m telling you there is hope. I have seen it, but it does not come from the governments or corporations. It comes from the people.

Nothing can come of nothing.

A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.

If I inspire you, pay for it, period.

Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.

The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader.

I’m most suspicious of scripts that have a lot of stage direction at the top of the page… sunrise over the desert and masses of… a whole essay before you get to the dialogue.

Work is making a living out of being bored.

In college, I think I probably positioned myself as an aspiring writer, meaning I dressed sort of extravagantly and adopted all the semi-Byronic affectations, as if I were writing, although I wasn’t actually doing any writing.

It’s very important that we re-learn the art of resting and relaxing. Not only does it help prevent the onset of many illnesses that develop through chronic tension and worrying; it allows us to clear our minds, focus, and find creative solutions to problems.

Nothing induces me to read a novel except when I have to make money by writing about it. I detest them.

Our best thoughts come from others.

I love making music. That’s what I love to do. So I don’t feel like there’s any need to take a break unless I want to.

I like being a writer.

Imagination decides everything.

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

The actual business of writing dialogue is not thought of as a craft.

Words without actions are the assassins of idealism.

For me to talk with Obama and the conversation I had with him, I was letting him know that me and my fans have a special connection, and it’s love, and I believe that love is the answer.

Ideas are the beginning points of all fortunes.

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

It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.

There is always another way to say the same thing that doesn’t look at all like the way you said it before. I don’t know what the reason for this is. I think it is somehow a representation of the simplicity of nature.

I want to be like Bruce Springsteen or something, making songs that are relevant.

‚Recreative‘ is a word that I invented because in urban culture, with colloquialism, we invent so many slangs. I don’t like the way that ‚recreational‘ sounds – I don’t like to say I do a lot of ‚recreational‘ reading. I like to say that I read ‚recreatively.‘ I do a lot of ‚recreative‘ reading.

The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity.

My heroes are the ones who survived doing it wrong, who made mistakes, but recovered from them.

You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

Great hearts steadily send forth the secret forces that incessantly draw great events.

One must be an inventor to read well. There is then creative reading as well as creative writing.

One thing that writers have in common is that they are readers first. They have read lots and lots of stuff, because they’re just infested with lots of stuff.

I know how fiction matters to me, because if I want to express myself, I have to make up a story. Some people call it imagination. To me, it’s not imagination. It’s just a way of watching.

There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.

No man was ever wise by chance.

I’ve never had writer’s block.

We are motivated by a keen desire for praise, and the better a man is the more he is inspired by glory. The very philosophers themselves, even in those books which they write in contempt of glory, inscribe their names.

When I am putting looks together, I dare myself to make something work. I always look for the most interesting silhouette or something that’s a little off, but I have to figure it out. I have to make it me. I think that’s the thrill in fashion.

Writing is like a ‚lust,‘ or like ‚scratching when you itch.‘ Writing comes as a result of a very strong impulse, and when it does come, I, for one, must get it out.

The smart thing in the art world is to have one good idea and never have another.

I just want to keep pushing the envelope without it feeling forced.

Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.

Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.

I’ve still not written as well as I want to. I want to write so that the reader in Des Moines, Iowa, in Kowloon, China, in Cape Town, South Africa, can say, ‚You know, that’s the truth. I wasn’t there, and I wasn’t a six-foot black girl, but that’s the truth.‘

Millions of people were inspired by the Apollo Program. I was five years old when I watched Apollo 11 unfold on television, and without any doubt it was a big contributor to my passions for science, engineering, and exploration.

The world is full of hopeful analogies and handsome, dubious eggs, called possibilities.

The most important thing is to read as much as you can, like I did. It will give you an understanding of what makes good writing and it will enlarge your vocabulary.

My work as an artist is completely separate from my work as a philanthropist.

I remember very little about writing the first series of ‚Hitchhiker’s.‘ It’s almost as if someone else wrote it.