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

I believe in being an innovator.

My superhero has always been Tendulkar, and it will be Tendulkar for life. He is someone who has inspired me immensely. Just watching him play for India, I used to dream of winning games for India, because he used to do it single handedly.

I’ve been asking myself: ‚Why put together these things – CDs, albums?‘ The answer I came up with is, well, sometimes it’s artistically viable. It’s not just a random collection of songs. Sometimes the songs have a common thread, even if it’s not obvious or even conscious on the artists‘ part.

When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily I should have been in that band – or at least in a Pixies cover band.

I try not to think about anything special while running. As a matter of fact, I usually run with my mind empty. However, when I run empty-minded, something naturally and abruptly crawls in sometime. That might become an idea that can help me with my writing.

There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere.

In cricket, my superhero is Sachin Tendulkar. He has always been my hero and will continue to remain so. Apart from him and outside cricket, my mother has remained my inspiration. Whatever difficult time I had faced, she was always there for me. She has given me all the strength. She maintained her composure and supported me in tough times.

I have one yardstick by which I test every major problem – and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?

It may be that the most striking thing about members of my literary generation in retrospect will be that we were allowed to say absolutely anything without fear of punishment.

Life loves the liver of it.

If you dream the proper dreams, and share the myths with people, they will want to grow up to be like you.

I really thought I was on the way out. My husband Blake saved my life. Often I don’t know what I do, then the next day the memory returns. And then I am engulfed in shame.

When we are well, we all have good advice for those who are ill.

I wanted very much to learn to draw, for a reason that I kept to myself: I wanted to convey an emotion I have about the beauty of the world.

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

My whole thing is to inspire, to better people, to better myself forever in this thing that we call rap, this thing that we call hip hop.

If they can make penicillin out of mouldy bread, they can sure make something out of you.

I’ve never had a divorce, but I’ve seen so many of my friends, my sister, my family go through that stuff, so I try to write for the people that can’t write about it. I take on their sorrow, so I’m able to kind of express it, or their joy.

Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.

In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm… in the real world all rests on perseverance.

I would go to the deeps a hundred times to cheer a downcast spirit. It is good for me to have been afflicted, that I might know how to speak a word in season to one that is weary.

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

Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.

I heard that when Christina Aguilera went back to her prom, people, like, booed her. I can’t imagine going through that. If you know that’s going to happen, why put yourself in that situation? I’d rather play for 20,000 screaming people, you know?

I’m a songwriter. Everything affects me.

Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall.

The greatest story of all is Colonel Sanders. He didn’t start until he was sixty-six on a freeway bypass for his chicken shop. Anything is possible!

If we can really understand the problem, the answer will come out of it, because the answer is not separate from the problem.

Nothing is more fearful than imagination without taste.

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.

All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.

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.

Never lose a holy curiosity.

If a poet is anybody, he is somebody to whom things made matter very little – somebody who is obsessed by Making.

Ideas excite me, and as soon as I get excited, the adrenaline gets going and the next thing I know I’m borrowing energy from the ideas themselves.

When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.

To me, the most important artists in my career are Arcangel and Balvin. Arcangel gave me the push, the respect in the streets.

I’ve had mixtapes that have been better than albums I’ve heard from other artists. I take my time; I put my heart into it.

One strength of the communist system of the East is that it has some of the character of a religion and inspires the emotions of a religion.

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

We have one planet in our solar system that’s habitable, and that’s the Earth, and space travel can transform things back here for the better. First of all, by just having people go to space and look back on this fragile planet we live on. People have come back transformed and have done fantastic things.

I feel impressed to counsel those engaged in personal challenges to do right. In particular, my heart reaches out to those who feel discouraged by the magnitude of their struggle.

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.

When you’re around me and really see that all I do is live and breathe for my work, it’s not strange, it’s just Gaga.

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

Art is to be free. Design is to fix.

Somebody once asked me what my theory of life was, and I said, ‚Don’t try.‘ That fits the writing, too. I don’t try; I just type.

I always like to create things that get attention. It used to be a problem when I wasn’t famous. Now, I can do whatever I want and people have to accept it.

It’s nice, I think, when people use your music for things you didn’t think of.

Fortunately, we have help from the media. I have to say this: I’m very grateful for the support and kindness that we’ve gotten. People have respected their privacy and in that way, I think, you know, no matter what people may feel about my husband’s policies or what have you, they care about children and that’s been good to see.

All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.

When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.

I never woke up and thought, ‚I really want to live a bold life.‘

Art never harms itself by keeping aloof from the social problems of the day: rather, by so doing, it more completely realises for us that which we desire.

My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.

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

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

When I’m 40 and nobody wants to see me in a sparkly dress anymore, I’ll be like: ‚Cool, I’ll just go in the studio and write songs for kids.‘

The Occupy movement did create spontaneously communities that taught people something: you can be in a supportive community of mutual aid and cooperation and develop your own health system and library and have open space for democratic discussion and participation. Communities like that are really important.