For me, genres are a way for people to easily categorize music. But it doesn’t have to define you. It doesn’t have to limit you.

I criticize by creation – not by finding fault.

It’s time to fundamentally change the way that we do business in Washington. To help build a new foundation for the 21st century, we need to reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative. That will demand new thinking and a new sense of responsibility for every dollar that is spent.

My songs are like my children – I expect them to support me when I’m old.

I love to watch videos, and I’ve always liked to film and take pictures. I have an eye for really weird things that nobody thinks about. I used to make little movies about myself and then edit them on iMovie.

It was very lucky for me as a writer that I studied the physical sciences rather than English. I wrote for my own amusement. There was no kindly English professor to tell me for my own good how awful my writing really was. And there was no professor with the power to order me what to read, either.

All government, of course, is against liberty.

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

A person who is truly authentic doesn’t need to play a role in life, we think, but can simply be him – or herself.

It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.

You fail only if you stop writing.

If you hear a voice within you say ‚you cannot paint,‘ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.

There is a great discovery still to be made in literature, that of paying literary men by the quantity they do not write.

In the literal sense, there has been no relevant evolution since the trek from Africa. But there has been substantial progress towards higher standards of rights, justice and freedom – along with all too many illustrations of how remote is the goal of a decent society.

Writing has always had that tactile quality for me. It’s a physical experience.

A man who is not afraid is not aggressive, a man who has no sense of fear of any kind is really a free, a peaceful man.

Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.

College isn’t the place to go for ideas.

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

Pound’s crazy. All poets are. They have to be. You don’t put a poet like Pound in the loony bin.

I’ve been asked this question so many times, do you feel you need to write a book for adults? No, I don’t need to write a book for adults.

It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent.

A song has to take on character, shape, body and influence people to an extent that they use it for their own devices. It must affect them not just as a song, but as a lifestyle.

I’m wallowing in the whole idea of just being a guy out there with a band, with songs. It’s a real enjoyment.

I never look at my watch when I’m sketching!

Young people these days don’t trust anything at all. They want to be free.

If you’re gonna make connections which are innovative… you have to not have the same bag of experiences as everyone else does.

Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.

A song is anything that can walk by itself.

Poetry comes from the highest happiness or the deepest sorrow.

If you’re waiting for the perfect moment, you’ll never write a thing because it will never arrive. I have no routine. I have no foolproof anything. There’s nothing foolproof.

Live out of your imagination, not your history.

Men’s actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted, and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.

There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‚within the limits of the law‘ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

I enjoy being involved in making the artwork for albums and stupid stuff like that.

So vast is art, so narrow human wit.

The power of imagination makes us infinite.

Yet, it is true, poetry is delicious; the best prose is that which is most full of poetry.

I love dresses, and I’ve definitely thought about designing them someday. I just want to make sure that I wait until the time is perfect and I can do it right.

The men and women of Afghanistan are building a nation that is free, and proud, and fighting terror – and America is honored to be their friend.

Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.

I’m the type person, my safe place to be emotional is the booth.

Among the many values in life, I appreciate freedom most.

It is better for you to be free of fear lying upon a pallet, than to have a golden couch and a rich table and be full of trouble.

Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom – and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.

Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity.

I’m very much into making lists and breaking things apart into categories.

Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig. I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

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.

You know that being an American is more than a matter of where your parents came from. It is a belief that all men are created free and equal and that everyone deserves an even break.

Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief.

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans – because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That’s why we paint, that’s why we dare to love someone – because we have the impulse to explain who we are.

I feel the emotion that life conjures up and the songs I write get me closer to my feelings and realising who I am. It’s a natural process.

Nothing has been purchased more dearly than the little bit of reason and sense of freedom which now constitutes our pride.

A record deal doesn’t make you an artist; you make yourself an artist.

You don’t have to be like everybody else or do things like everybody else. God created you to be a unique individual, and He wants you to be free to be who He made you to be.

I don’t control my writing – it controls me.