Collecting facts is important. Knowledge is important. But if you don’t have an imagination to use the knowledge, civilization is nowhere.

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

There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating – people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

I think people inspire me the most. If I meet a person who is incredibly complex, and all of a sudden, I start thinking in rhymes, that person could be a muse.

All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy. What right have we then to depreciate imagination.

I write screenplays in the middle of the night.

In many ways, I’ve been writing personal stories all my life.

Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.

Those who have knowledge, don’t predict. Those who predict, don’t have knowledge.

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.

I think that when we know that we actually do live in uncertainty, then we ought to admit it; it is of great value to realize that we do not know the answers to different questions. This attitude of mind – this attitude of uncertainty – is vital to the scientist, and it is this attitude of mind which the student must first acquire.

I’ve always felt that what I have going for me is not my imagination, because everyone has an imagination. What I have is a relentlessly controlled imagination. What looks like wild invention is actually quite carefully calculated.

Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed.

Just because you like my stuff doesn’t mean I owe you anything.

I’ve never written a song in my life. It’s all a big hoax.

My style influences my music and everything around me.

PowerPoint may not be of any use for you in a presentation, but it may liberate you in another way, an artistic way. Who knows.

I am a part of everything that I have read.

Doing collections, doing fashion is like a non-stop dialogue.

The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.

There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.

People who make history know nothing about history. You can see that in the sort of history they make.

The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds.

There are lies, damned lies and statistics.

I’m seeing the world partially through the eyes of a kid. Not all the time. There’s no black and white to it. But sometimes I’m seeing it like I’m 4.

Science has explained nothing; the more we know the more fantastic the world becomes and the profounder the surrounding darkness.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.

Let’s not burn the universities yet. After all, the damage they do might be worse.

Even if you have nothing to write, write and say so.

I stay out of politics because if I begin thinking too much about politics, I’ll probably… drop writing children’s books and become a political cartoonist again.

Writing is a solitary experience. I’m extremely superstitious. If I talk about the book or name the title out loud before finishing, I feel the energy I need to write will be drained. It’s so intimate, I can’t even share it with my wife.

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.

If I’m inspired to make a certain kind of song, I’m going to make that kind of song, no matter if it’s what they know me as or think I am.

Disneyland will never be completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.

But when I hear a great song, I can’t help but be inspired by it, regardless of whatever genre that song falls under.

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

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

If you want to talk about something new, you have to make up a new kind of language.

If a man writes a book, let him set down only what he knows. I have guesses enough of my own.

I don’t think I’d ever apologise for music I make, no.

Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.

Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed… It doesn’t give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.

I’m fascinated by musicians who don’t completely understand their territory; that’s when you do your best work.

His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even… knowledge, was foolproof.

Once I’ve written something it does tend to run away from me. I don’t seem to have any part of it – it’s no longer my piece of writing.

Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things.

If I make music and people hate it, you know, whatever. I’ll die someday, and one day, they will too.

When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at top speed.

As much as I love the Western genre, I figured if I kept doing those, I’d eventually run out of steam on that, and that would’ve been the end of it.

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

Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.

As a songwriter, you respect and appreciate the writings of other people, and I often get asked, are there songs out there I wish I’d written? Yes. There’s many of them!

We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us.

If there’s not drama and negativity in my life, all my songs will be really wack and boring or something.

What inspires me about rap is that it’s written in an almost poetic way. I just think it’s so cool.

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.

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.

As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.

I find that when I get on stage now, I don’t want to perform a lot of my songs because they don’t feel like me. So I want to make songs that are timeless.

No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals.

The human body has two ends on it: one to create with and one to sit on. Sometimes people get their ends reversed. When this happens they need a kick in the seat of the pants.