I can say I’d honestly rather be happy than have 30 to 40 songs that I’ve written about these thrilling, exciting, horrible, unhappy times.

Science does not know its debt to imagination.

I don’t want to make niche-oriented music.

Art is the proper task of life.

The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake.

I have no human feelings.

In South Korea, they believe that when you turn 60, you’ve become a baby again and the rest of your life should be totally about joy and happiness, and people should leave you alone, and I just think that that’s the height of intelligence.

You fail only if you stop writing.

I can’t see myself singing the same song twice in a row. That’s terrible.

As the births of living creatures are at first ill-shapen, so are all innovations, which are the births of time.

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.

I really believed that fear is contagious.

Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.

I think women go crazy for a reason. It’s not like it just happens.

A true artist is expected to be all that is noble-minded, and this is not altogether a mistake; on the other hand, however, in what a mean way are critics allowed to pounce upon us.

You should treat a muse like a fairy.

I don’t set out to write about spirituality; I am free to do something different every time.

Therapy? I don’t need that. The roles that I choose are my therapy.

I’ve always been very happy. I’ve always been easy going and I’ve always been very encouraging; it’s just my personality.

Irrespective of age, we mourn for those loved and lost. Mourning is one of the deepest expressions of pure love.

In all seriousness, people think that it’s the ideas that are important. Well, everyone has ideas, all the time. I tend to write mine down and remember them, but at some point you have to apply the bum to the seat and knock out about sixty five thousand words – that’s how long a novel is.

My goal in music is to create nostalgic moments.

I think the perfection of love is that it’s not perfect.

The artist forges himself to the others, midway between the beauty he cannot do without and the community he cannot tear himself away from. That is why true artists scorn nothing: they are obliged to understand rather than to judge.

Love is not consolation. It is light.

If I died tomorrow, I would be a happy girl.

I alone of English writers have consciously set myself to make music out of what I may call the sound of sense.

I really started writing music to challenge myself, to see what I could write.

O! Let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven; keep me in temper; I would not be mad!

Genius… means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.

A lot of people don’t realise I came out of the Smoky Mountains with a load of songs.

There’s a part of you – the born-again part, your spirit – that’s dead to sin. That’s why it bothers you now when you sin. The ‚wilderness‘ part of you – your soul – is your unrenewed mind, out-of-control emotions, and stubborn will.

Our vanity is hardest to wound precisely when our pride has just been wounded.

Meditation has been a loyal friend to me. It has helped me write my books.

If I cry, it’s because I’m very angry and I can’t do anything about it because I’ve run into a dead end. That’s when the tears would come down.

Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.

I hardly ever go into the studio with a work complete in my head. It emerges from communal activity.

I want to thank The Beatles for almost single-handedly getting me out of writer’s block.

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

Feelings are more dangerous than ideas, because they aren’t susceptible to rational evaluation. They grow quietly, spreading underground, and erupt suddenly, all over the place.

U2 is sort of song writing by accident really. We don’t really know what we’re doing and when we do, it doesn’t seem to help.

Life is essentially a cheat and its conditions are those of defeat; the redeeming things are not happiness and pleasure but the deeper satisfactions that come out of struggle.

‚House of Balloons‘ was special because I had no deadlines, and nobody knew me, so there were no expectations. Spent a year making it perfect. Every song had at least, like, 7 different versions to them before picking the right one.

I always wrote poetry and stuff like that, so putting songs together wasn’t that spectacular.

I’ve had everything pierced at some point.

Not to expose your true feelings to an adult seems to be instinctive from the age of seven or eight onwards.

My nails are my rhythm section when I’m writing a song all alone. Some day, I may cut an album, just me and my nails.

Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relation.

The most miraculous process is watching a song go from a tiny idea in the middle of the night to something that 55,000 people are singing back to you.

I feel like in my music I can be a rebel. I can say things I wouldn’t say in real life.

Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.

I love designing at the moment, I’m so happy with my work.

I would love to sign on to do a movie if it was the right role and if it was the right script, because I would be taking time away from music to tell a big grand story, and spend all of my time and pouring all of my emotions into being someone else. So for me to do that, it would have to be a story worth telling.

Everybody born comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. We come from the Creator with creativity. I think that each one of us is born with creativity.

Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.

Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.

I really wish I knew what I was doing because I’d be writing hit songs every minute.

I create stars.

It’s not always been a happy marriage. I guess I wanted a quick fix.

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

To wear your heart on your sleeve isn’t a very good plan; you should wear it inside, where it functions best.