Frankly, I mean, sometimes the interpretations I’ve seen on some of the songs that I’ve written are a lot more interesting than the input that I put in.

I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about dying, but I like to think that I’ve – if it did occur – that I would die peacefully and not make too much of a fuss about it.

I can be almost terminally grief-stricken because things are so dire, but at the same time, there’s a real lightheartedness about just the recoverability of life, of how things change, how they’re not the same, ever again.

Some of our earliest writing, in cuneiform, was about who owes what.

Those who create are rare; those who cannot are numerous. Therefore, the latter are stronger.

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

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.

If you want to make beautiful music, you must play the black and the white notes together.

The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity.

I think the reason my stories have been so successful is that I have a strong sense of metaphor.

You don’t have to be a renowned artist like Q-Tip to try your hand at poetry. You don’t need any special equipment – that’s the beauty of it.

In my entire life, any time I’ve ever lost something, I’ve gotten something even better going around the next corner. It’s like one door closes and another door opens. As long as I can walk through the produce section in every grocery store in this country and eat the grapes that they’re going to throw away, I know I can be fine.

Necessity… the mother of invention.

I think that’s why I put my energy into making music. That’s how I get my thoughts out, instead of being crazy all the time.

It’s the way I study – to understand something by trying to work it out or, in other words, to understand something by creating it. Not creating it one hundred percent, of course; but taking a hint as to which direction to go but not remembering the details. These you work out for yourself.

Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.

Painting, I think it’s like jazz.

Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.

I believe in being an innovator.

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.

I actually feel like women in my position, when we have all at our disposal to help us, shouldn’t complain when we consider all of the people who are really struggling and don’t have the means or support. Many people are single, raising children. That’s hard.

If my films don’t show a profit, I know I’m doing something right.

So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.

The frontier between hell and heaven is only the difference between two ways of looking at things.

That is how you get to be a writer, incidentally: you feel somehow marginal, somehow slightly off-balance all the time.

We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. The teaching of the church is clear, and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.

Writing means sharing. It’s part of the human condition to want to share things – thoughts, ideas, opinions.

My interest in creating anything is that it be useful.

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!

The last people with any ideas are young people.

When you’re doing a film and the majority of the film is cast black, for me, it’s most important to get people to view those movies as just movies, as just good movies. At the end of the day, regardless of the color of the cast, we’re all doing the same thing in this business: trying to make a good film.

I have tried for much of my life to write as if I was composing my sentences to be read posthumously.

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.

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.

I’m half living my life between reality and fantasy at all times. It’s best not to ask questions and just enjoy.

People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost.

They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong.

Any experience that touches you, in any particular way, is good. It can be a horrible experience.

I became an actress because my mom wanted me to become an actress. It took me until my mid-30s to realize I actually didn’t. I actually wanted to write and direct and be more involved in politics and humanitarian issues.

But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes.

I really don’t pay attention to the outside world when I’m incarcerated, because being in prison is like being in a different world. So I don’t pay attention to what’s going on outside of jail, because it’s all beyond my control.

To do a dull thing with style-now that’s what I call art.

Without stirring abroad, One can know the whole world; Without looking out of the window One can see the way of heaven. The further one goes The less one knows.

I can express myself.

A work of art that contains theories is like an object on which the price tag has been left.

I’ve been singing Shakira songs in front of my bathroom mirror into my hairbrush forever. It’s like a daily routine.

What my character is or how many jails I have lounged in, or wards or walls or wassails, how many lonely-heart poetry readings I have dodged, is beside the point. A man’s soul or lack of it will be evident with what he can carve upon a white sheet of paper.

Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable.

If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.

Surely a long life must be somewhat tedious, since we are forced to call in so many trifling things to help rid us of our time, which will never return.

I feel that when you care about your music, taking risks is something you should do to keep things exciting.

Some people take defeat and losses a certain way. You see how some fighters take losses.

I’ve had all six of my books reach the New York Times bestseller list, which is especially rewarding seeing as I flunked out of high school twice because I couldn’t write. It just goes to show you that we learn from our mistakes.

If you are going to write, say, fantasy – stop reading fantasy. You’ve already read too much. Read other things; read westerns, read history, read anything that seems interesting, because if you only read fantasy and then you start to write fantasy, all you’re going to do is recycle the same old stuff and move it around a bit.

In the course of history, men come to see that iron necessity is neither iron nor necessary.

Why, if someone is good in one field can they not be accepted or given the slightest opportunity to express and be creative in other fields?

For me, there are two types of people: the young and the experienced.

I never wanted to write the sort of song that said, ‚Look at how abnormal and crazy and out there I am, man!‘

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