I don’t like to write like God. It is only because you never do it, though, that the critics think you can’t do it.

We like to think about how smart we are. But I think talent as a writer is hard-wired in, it’s all there, at least the basic elements of it. You can’t change it any more than you can choose whether to be right handed or left handed.

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.

Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.

A person standing in front of an audience without enthusiasm for his subject and his actions is disconnected from his spirit.

There is always another way to say the same thing that doesn’t look at all like the way you said it before. I don’t know what the reason for this is. I think it is somehow a representation of the simplicity of nature.

Many children make up, or begin to make up, imaginary languages. I have been at it since I could write.

I write all of my own speeches.

The style of God venerated in the church, mosque, or synagogue seems completely different from the style of the natural universe.

I was a grade B housewife, maybe a B minus. But when I got time to write, I would be unable to finish a sentence. I had anxiety attacks. Partly it was a way of personifying the situation because I couldn’t breathe. I was surrounded by people and by duties. I was a housewife and the children’s mother, and I was judged on how I performed those roles.

I always tell audiences when I talk about writing: Writing isn’t something I do; writing is something that I am. I am writing – it’s just an expression of me.

A good day is one where I can not just read a book, but write a review of it. Maybe today I’ll be able to do that. I get for some reason somewhat stronger when the sun starts to go down. Dusk is a good time for me. I’m crepuscular.

The author of the Iliad is either Homer or, if not Homer, somebody else of the same name.

I can make something magical and wonderful out of nothing.

I feel like when I try to fit in, it comes across as not genuine, and that is not good. I’d rather just do me and have people say, ‚Oh. That’s interesting,‘ than try to fit in.

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

I like the discipline of well-cut, impeccable clothes. I think it’s a very healthy discipline.

Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.

My whole life is a theater piece.

People want to know why I do this, why I write such gross stuff. I like to tell them I have the heart of a small boy… and I keep it in a jar on my desk.

I enjoy working with complicated equipment. A lot of my things started just with a rhythm box, but I feed it through so many things that what comes out sounds very complex and rich.

In art, at a certain level, there is no ‚better than.‘ It’s just about trying to operate for yourself on the most supreme level, artistically, that you can and hoping that people get it. Trusting that, just because of the way people are built and how interconnected we are, greatness will translate and symmetry will be recognised.

So that’s the dissenter’s hope: that they are writing not for today but for tomorrow.

The assumption is that your personal life has to be a mess to create, but how much chaos can you allow in before it takes over?

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those move easiest who have learn’d to dance.

I don’t want to use my creative energy on somebody else’s user interface.

I love making music. That’s what I love to do. So I don’t feel like there’s any need to take a break unless I want to.

You can write a short story in two hours. Two hours a day, you have a novel in a year.

But innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about a problem.

I’ve never had writer’s block.

All of my writing is God-given.

When you seek the presence of your creative Spirit and are filled with passion about virtually everything you undertake, you’ll successfully remove the roadblocks from your life and enjoy the active presence of Spirit.

I’ve been lucky – all the ads I’ve got, I’ve got to be myself. I haven’t had to act too much or tried too hard to be someone I’m not. I think that’s why people sort of like them. Even the Fastrack ads I did with Genelia.

For novelists or musicians, if they really want to create something, they need to go downstairs and find a passage to get into the second basement. What I want to do is go down there, but still stay sane.

Young people are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and more fit for new projects than for settled business.

In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing.

Good thinkers always prime the pump of ideas. They always look for things to get the thinking process started, because what you put in always impacts what comes out.

Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system.

Writing is fun – at least mostly. I write for four hours every day. After that I go running. As a rule, 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). That’s easy to manage.

Technique is really personality. That is the reason why the artist cannot teach it, why the pupil cannot learn it, and why the aesthetic critic can understand it.

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

When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That’s when you can get more creative in solving problems.

I worked out a lot before I was 20. I was hard underneath. I had just a little padding. I was quilted. Always Chanel.

Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.

The book is not really the container for the book. The book itself is the narrative. It’s the thing that people create.

Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something.

I hoped to be able to write a novel which would enable me to live on it while I wrote the next.

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

I’m looking for backing for an unauthorized auto-biography that I am writing. Hopefully, this will sell in such huge numbers that I will be able to sue myself for an extraordinary amount of money and finance the film version in which I will play everybody.

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

There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.

It’s not easy to define poetry.

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.

When you’re writing a novel, you don’t want the reader to come out of it voting yes or no to some question. Life is more complicated than that. Reality simply consists of different points of view.

When you write your first book aged 25 or so, you have 25 years of experience, albeit much of it juvenile experience. The second book comes after an extra year sitting in bookshops. Pretty soon, you begin to run on empty.

I just make the pictures and where they fall is where they fall. If somebody likes them, that’s always nice. And if they don’t like them, then too bad.

The secret to the movie business, or any business, is to get a good education in a subject besides film – whether it’s history, psychology, economics, or architecture – so you have something to make a movie about. All the skill in the world isn’t going to help you unless you have something to say.

My purpose is to make exciting music, and I feel like I’ll be doing that for the rest of my life, so there’s no pressure.

In a democracy, allegations will never improve situations. So, I’m against allegations, but I always welcome criticism.

The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.

Yes, and I can sit down on a white piece of paper and work because I don’t believe too much into inspiration, only I’m waiting for inspiration, work and then inspiration may come. It’s a little too easy to say that.