But I think talent as a writer is hard-wired in, it’s all there, at least the basic elements of it. You can’t change it any more than you can choose whether to be right handed or left handed.

I just make the pictures and where they fall is where they fall. If somebody likes them, that’s always nice. And if they don’t like them, then too bad.

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

Although I write screenplays, I don’t think I’m a very good writer.

Art is the proper task of life.

I don’t want to use my creative energy on somebody else’s user interface.

I do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by married men.

The arts have only ever interested a small minority of people, which acted as a kind of nursery to support artists.

The last people with any ideas are young people.

For just when ideas fail, a word comes in to save the situation.

Like a pianist runs her fingers over the keys, I’ll search my mind for what to say. Now, the poem may want you to write it. And then sometimes you see a situation and think, ‚I’d like to write about that.‘ Those are two different ways of being approached by a poem, or approaching a poem.

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.

As an artist your first loyalty is to your art. Unless this is the case, you’re going to be a second-rate artist.

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.

Genres aren’t closed boxes. Stuff flows back and forth across the borders all the time.

He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.

There is only one position for an artist anywhere; and that is upright.

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.

I’m a painter in sound.

Mere humans who root through their refrigerators at three o’clock in the morning can only produce writing that matches what they do. And that includes me.

I feel very lucky to make a living from my imagination; I’m very grateful for that. I like that what I do is create. I’m feeling very lucky to have had the career I had. It’s gone much longer and bigger than I ever thought it would be.

Many are they who have a taste and love for drawing, but no talent; and this will be discernible in boys who are not diligent and never finish their drawings with shading.

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

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

Art is not a thing; it is a way.

Thirty-three-years-old, still creating art. It’s rage, it’s creativity, it’s pain, it’s hurt, but it’s the opportunity to still have my voice get out there through music.

I can take a beginner kid that has never danced in their lives, and I can teach them something, or I can take a really advanced dancer, and I can make them into a professional.

Eating words has never given me indigestion.

I have the ’77 Million Paintings‘ running in my studio a lot of the time. Occasionally I’ll look up from what I’m doing and I think, ‚God, I’ve never seen anything like that before!‘ And that’s a real thrill.

If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it.

Scientists have to have a metaphor. All scientists start with imagination.

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.

For instance, I’m always fascinated to see whether, given the kind of fairly known and established form called popular music, whether there is some magic combination that nobody has hit upon before.

Whenever I write a novel, I have a strong sense that I am doing something I was unable to do before. With each new work, I move up a step and discover something new inside me.

No grand idea was ever born in a conference, but a lot of foolish ideas have died there.

Deep down, I know I have this intuition or instinct that a lot of creative people have, that their demons are also what make them create.

I worked with Congress on legislation, gave speeches to CEOs, military generals and Hollywood executives. But I also worked to ensure that my efforts would resonate with kids and families – and that meant doing things in a creative and unconventional way. So, yeah, I planted a garden and hula-hooped on the White House lawn with kids.

When younger writers and poets, musicians and painters are weakened by a stemming of funds, they come to me saddened, not as full of dreams and excitement and ideas. I am then weakened and diminished, and made less rich.

With all singers, insecurity is your best security. That’s why we’re such loud people and why we walk all funny. You think, ‚Are people interested?‘ But I think our band has something and they know we don’t just put albums out. We do think about it.

Generally, a writer of force is anywhere from 20 years to 200 years ahead of his generation.

Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others.

You can’t do it unless you can imagine it.

It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection.

I have fallen in love with the imagination. And if you fall in love with the imagination, you understand that it is a free spirit. It will go anywhere, and it can do anything.

Inspiration is hard to come by. You have to take it where you find it.

Good leaders must communicate vision clearly, creatively, and continually. However, the vision doesn’t come alive until the leader models it.

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.

I hardly ever go into the studio with a work complete in my head. It emerges from communal activity.

There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it’s like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.

College isn’t the place to go for ideas.

No one’s policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analysing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes.

Well, Art is Art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know.

Opera happens because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong.

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

The more you practice, the better you get, the more freedom you have to create.

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

The totalitarian world produces backwardness because it does such violence to the spirit, thwarting the human impulse to create, to enjoy, to worship.

I knew I wanted to do something creative. I didn’t think I’d have the luxury of doing something like that, because I didn’t know anyone who had pursued anything they really adored, but I had dreams for singing or writing.

A true artist is expected to be all that is noble-minded, and this is not altogether a mistake; on the other hand, however, in what a mean way are critics allowed to pounce upon us.

I try to do the fancy things out there by going with both hands, making crossover moves, and having a certain creativity and flair to my game.