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.

Forces that you might think are utterly unrelated to creativity can have a big impact. Technology, obviously, but environment, too. Even financial structures can affect the actual content of a song. The making of music is profoundly affected by the market.

I didn’t get trained by the school system like other kids, and when I did concentrate on learning, my mind was cluttered and locked by the programming of the system.

There is a lot of pressure put on me, but I don’t put a lot of pressure on myself. I feel if I play my game, it will take care of itself.

It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.

We should not be so taken up in the search for truth, as to neglect the needful duties of active life; for it is only action that gives a true value and commendation to virtue.

Things won are done, joy’s soul lies in the doing.

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.

People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong. Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?

What is common sense isn’t common practice.

People wanted me to do a CD-ROM of ‚Hitchhiker’s,‘ and I thought, ‚No, no.‘ I didn’t want to just sort of reverse-engineer yet another thing from a book I’d already written. I think that the digital media are interesting enough in their own right to be worth originating something in.

I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.

You just don’t wake up one day and decide that you need to write songs.

Remember you are just an extra in everyone else’s play.

It’s a philosophy of life. A practice. If you do this, something will change, what will change is that you will change, your life will change, and if you can change you, you can perhaps change the world.

Fear clogs; faith liberates.

The concept of commercialism in the fashion and art world is looked down upon. You know, just to think, ‚What amount of creativity does it take to make something that masses of people like?‘ And, ‚How does creativity apply across the board?‘

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

Life must be lived as play.

Progressively saved by the machine from the anxieties that bound his hands and mind to material toil, relieved of a large part of his work and compelled to an ever-increasing speed of action by the devices which his intelligence cannot help ceaselessly creating and perfecting, man is about to find himself abruptly plunged into idleness.

Whenever I make music, it reflects where I’m at mentally.

I would venture to guess that the biggest reason creative types don’t produce isn’t because they don’t have vision… or talent… in most cases, it’s a lack of discipline.

The great end of life is not knowledge but action.

If you’re afraid to fail, then you’re probably going to fail.

I never worry about action, but only inaction.

The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me.

The most genius thing about the way I create is to create with other geniuses.

Time is kind of an amazing thing because you can do so much with it. I think people underestimate time… I don’t want to just sit on my phone for hours.

Thoughts are mental energy; they’re the currency that you have to attract what you desire. Learn to stop spending that currency on thoughts you don’t want.

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

Having unlimited choices can paralyze you creatively.

Eating words has never given me indigestion.

I don’t think anything about a personal legacy. I mean, those words would never come out of my mouth unless I just repeated them. Those things have never been important to me.

Remembering what you’ve been through and how that has strengthened your mindset can lift you out of a negative brain loop and help you bypass those weak, one-second impulses to give in. Even if you’re feeling low and beat down by life right now, I guarantee you can think of a time or two when you overcame odds and tasted success.

All good art is an indiscretion.

Well, I think we tried very hard not to be overconfident, because when you get overconfident, that’s when something snaps up and bites you.

Sometimes I think that there’s a fine line between impressionistic and messy.

I feel, as a songwriter, it’s one of the hardest things to do – to sit down and say how you feel.

90 percent of my time is spent on 10 percent of the world.

Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.

I believe you never get tired by doing work. You get tired when you don’t work. When you clean your house, you don’t get tired; it gives you satisfaction.

The most effective way to do it, is to do it.

I didn’t want to play it boring and safe. I also didn’t want to innovate too much. Second albums, man, they’re even scarier than first ones.

Highly functioning self-actualized people simply never imagine what it is that they don’t wish to have as their reality.

Never regret what you don’t write.

I’m a slow worker; I’m, I think, a steady worker.

All action takes place, so to speak, in a kind of twilight, which like a fog or moonlight, often tends to make things seem grotesque and larger than they really are.

For a true writer, each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.

I’ve got incredible support from my wife and family and people around me. I’ve got great people around me who handle anything on the outside, business-wise, who help free me up to create in my job.

All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.

The good thing about having chemistry is, when you get to the improv section of a scene, you’ve got somebody to feed off. It can go on and on and on, and the sky’s the limit.

Whenever I write a novel, music just sort of naturally slips in (much like cats do, I suppose).

It would be great to be 105 and still making films.

Losers are people who are afraid of losing.

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

I kept writing not because I felt I was so good, but because I felt they were so bad, including Shakespeare, all those. The stilted formalism, like chewing cardboard.

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.

Time stays long enough for anyone who will use it.

The moment the alarm goes off is the first test; it sets the tone for the rest of the day. The test is not a complex one: when the alarm goes off, do you get up out of bed, or do you lie there in comfort and fall back to sleep? If you have the discipline to get out of bed, you win – you pass the test.

Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.

Bottom line is, I didn’t return to Apple to make a fortune. I’ve been very lucky in my life and already have one. When I was 25, my net worth was $100 million or so. I decided then that I wasn’t going to let it ruin my life. There’s no way you could ever spend it all, and I don’t view wealth as something that validates my intelligence.