I love, love, love just being hands on at all times in the studio.

The writing process, the way I go about it is I do whatever the beat feels like, whatever the beat is telling me to do. Usually when the beat comes on, I think of a hook or the subject I want to rap about almost instantly. Within four, eight bars of it playing I’m just like, ‚Oh, OK. This is what I wanna do‘.

I’ve always tended to write songs prolifically.

I’ve choreographed all of my movies.

I don’t really get into a big intellectual analysis of why I am going to do a certain script or not.

Strangely, some songs you really don’t want to write.

I believe the right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this; was it done with enjoyment, was the carver happy while he was about it?

The best thing is to always keep honest people around, because when you have a bunch of yes men around that know that you’re making a mistake but let you go on with it, that’s when it ruins your mind state as an artist.

The art of acting is not to act. Once you show them more, what you show them, in fact is bad acting.

I would have a workshop attached to every school, and one hour a day given up to the teaching of simple decorative arts. It would be a golden hour to the children.

I’m sticking to the script, I’m putting that organic feeling back in the game.

I’m a writer first and a singer second. And then I started editing my own videos when I was 17, so it’s a process I’ve been doing since I was younger.

‚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 start drawing, and eventually the characters involve themselves in a situation. Then in the end, I go back and try to cut out most of the preachments.

I never have an intended audience. I just write, you know.

I’m definitely a Polaroid camera girl. For me, what I’m really excited about is bringing back the artistry and the nature of Polaroid.

I have certain signatures, certain cutting principles. It could be a raw-edged seam; it could be leaving the lining of sheepskin exposed so it’s not perfectly finished. I invent new ways to do it, but the end goal is always the same.

When I’m stuck for a closing to a lyric, I will drag out my last resort: overwhelming illogic.

The making of music is profoundly affected by the market.

The poet, being an imitator like a painter or any other artist, must of necessity imitate one of three objects – things as they were or are, things as they are said or thought to be, or things as they ought to be. The vehicle of expression is language – either current terms or, it may be, rare words or metaphors.

For me it’s always contingent on getting a sound-the sound always suggests what kind of melody it should be. So it’s always sound first and then the line afterwards.

Let us have no machine-made ornament at all; it is all bad and worthless and ugly.

Our stories come from our lives and from the playwright’s pen, the mind of the actor, the roles we create, the artistry of life itself and the quest for peace.

For me, writing a song, I sit down and the process doesn’t really involve me thinking about the demographic of people I’m trying to hit or who I want to be able to relate to the song or what genre of music it falls under.

I always wanted to do things right and represent myself as somebody that took the art serious and someone that took the business serious also, so I had time to weigh the options and figure it out and do my best to create the situation that was ideal.

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.

Making music is like shopping for me. Every song is like a new pair of shoes.

My kind of composing is more like the work of a gardener. The gardener takes his seeds and scatters them, knowing what he is planting but not quite what will grow where and when – and he won’t necessarily be able to reproduce it again afterwards either.

Making a film is like putting out a fire with sieve. There are so many elements, and it gets so complicated.

I didn’t have any agenda or plan when I started writing stuff.

I couldn’t have written things like ‚Low‘ and ‚Heroes,‘ those particular albums, if it hadn’t have been for Berlin and the kind of atmosphere I felt there.

I felt like I had a really bad case of writer’s block… Music is so therapeutic for me that if I can’t get it out, I start feeling bad about myself – a lot of self-loathing.

When I am writing fiction, I believe I am much better organized, more methodical – one has to be when writing a novel. Writing poetry is a state of free float.

There’s nothing worse than sitting down to write a novel and saying, ‚Well, okay, I’m going to do something of high artistic worth.‘

Learning to make films is very easy. Learning what to make films about is very hard.

Software is a great combination between artistry and engineering.

Songwriters, you have to work – you have to wait for residuals. You have to pray that the song’s going to be a hit. And then a year later, you might get a check.

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.

There’s no one way to be creative. Any old way will work.

I have always been pushed by the negative. The apparent failure of a play sends me back to my typewriter that very night, before the reviews are out. I am more compelled to get back to work than if I had a success.

From things that have happened and from things as they exist and from all things that you know and all those you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive, and you make it alive, and if you make it well enough, you give it immortality.

My own books drive themselves. I know roughly where a book is going to end, but essentially the story develops under my fingers. It’s just a matter of joining the dots.

My experience with songwriting is usually so confessional, it’s so drawn from my own life and my own stories.

When I was making the early stuff, I never expected it to be so big. I was in my own kind of bubble. I never wanted to tour; I just wanted to create music and make a diary I could put out into the world. And sometimes, I became the characters.

I can write a song in about an hour if it’s a simple country song.

The way I approach this thing, when I started to get my head screwed on straight and really trying to make something of myself as an artist, when I was 19 or 20, it became more about function for me. Like, what is this song doing to you? What is the function of this type of artform? What is it doing?

Through my films I’m eventually trying to one day tell the truth. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get there, but I’m slowly letting pieces of myself out there and then maybe by the time I’m 85, I’ll look back and say, ‚All right, that about sums it up.‘

I usually write lyrics first, and then when I get home or close to any kind of instrument, I usually make a melody for those lyrics.

It’s a weird thing when you make records. You try to hear it before you make it, so you walk into the studio with this idea of what you expect to happen, and that usually changes. That usually turns into something else, and that’s a good thing.

‚Unforgiven‘ is probably an example of a script that I liked right away but thought, ‚This is great, but I’d like to do this when I’m older.‘ So I stuck it in the drawer for ten years and then took it out.

There appears to be something to do with vehicles and movement that stimulates my writing.

I was always trying – I never wanted to let my fans down; I always wanted them to see me in my art form.

I only type every third night. I have no plan. My mind is a blank. I sit down. The typewriter gives me things I don’t even know I’m working on. It’s a free lunch. A free dinner. I don’t know how long it is going to continue, but so far there is nothing easier than writing.

I might just write a novel next. I don’t know!

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

I know that one of the great arts that the writer develops is the art of saying, ‚No. No, I’m finished. Bye.‘ And leaving it alone. I will not write it into the ground. I will not write the life out of it. I won’t do that.

It’s insane that, since the Beatles and Dylan, it’s assumed that all musicians should do everything themselves. It’s that ridiculous, teenage idea that when Mick Jagger sings, he’s telling you something about his own life. It’s so arrogant to think that people would want to know about it anyway!

Why do I like to write short stories? Well, I certainly didn’t intend to. I was going to write a novel. And still! I still come up with ideas for novels. And I even start novels. But something happens to them. They break up. I look at what I really want to do with the material, and it never turns out to be a novel.

Usually I start with a beat, I start making a beat, and my producer side is making the beat. And on a good day, my rapper side will jump in and start the writing process – maybe come up with a hook or start a verse. Sometimes it just happens like that. A song like ‚Lights Please‘ happens like that.

Being a hybrid maker off and on over the years, I’m very comfortable with the idea and have been the subject of quite a few pretty good mash-ups myself.

I always have to be writing.