I think much has been made of this alter ego business. I mean, I actually stopped creating characters in 1975 – for albums, anyway.

All fiction is about people, unless it’s about rabbits pretending to be people. It’s all essentially characters in action, which means characters moving through time and changes taking place, and that’s what we call ‚the plot‘.

Every album, I make big records. I’m going to always make an anthem. That’s what I do.

Humanity at the centre of the primates, Homo sapiens, in humanity, is the end-product of a gradual work of creation, the successive sketches for which still surround us on every side.

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.

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, no, man was made for immortality.

I wanted to only create a great perfume, not any perfume that would sell, but a great artistic one that the fans would not feel cheated by.

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

I really believe in the philosophy that you create your own universe. I’m just trying to create a good one for myself.

What I’m hoping is that every album I’m going to do will give my audience something different, and that they’ll grow as I do.

Senator McCain is Israel’s most unconditional ally in Mossad’s machinations, something that even his worst adversaries would have been able to imagine. McCain participated alongside this secret service in the creation of the Islamic State, which has appropriated a considerable part of Iraq as well as a third of Syria, according to its affirmations.

What I’ve discovered is that in art, as in music, there’s a lot of truth-and then there’s a lie. The artist is essentially creating his work to make this lie a truth, but he slides it in amongst all the others. The tiny little lie is the moment I live for, my moment. It’s the moment that the audience falls in love.

I love Los Angeles, and it’s been very good to me, but if everyone is running around telling the stories, who’s living them? You don’t play characters that are celebrities – you play guys who know what to do when their septic tank’s blocked.

To create something you must be something.

I always liked characters that were more grounded in reality.

If an eloquent speaker speak not the truth, is there a more horrid kind of object in creation?

The reproduction of mankind is a great marvel and mystery. Had God consulted me in the matter, I should have advised him to continue the generation of the species by fashioning them out of clay.

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation and is but a reflection of human frailty.

If future generations are to remember us more with gratitude than sorrow, we must achieve more than just the miracles of technology. We must also leave them a glimpse of the world as it was created, not just as it looked when we got through with it.

A subject for a great poet would be God’s boredom after the seventh day of creation.

Helped are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conception and realize a partnership in the creation of the Universe that keeps them responsible and cheerful.

In each individual the spirit is made flesh, in each one the whole of creation suffers, in each one a Savior is crucified.

God made me and broke the mold.

Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.

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

Upon the creatures we have made, we are, ourselves, at last, dependent.

I don’t believe in an outside agent that creates the world, then walks away. But I feel very strongly there is an intelligence at work in every flower, in every blade of grass, in every cell of my body. And it is that intelligence that, I wouldn’t say created the universe. It is creating the universe. It’s an ongoing process.

The Canteen Boy, the reason you feel bad for him and you can laugh is because he, and I guess a lot of my characters, they don’t notice they’re getting made fun of. So they’ll say something back that’s not that great a quip, but in their mind they won the argument.

I don’t think that the total creation took place in six days as we now measure time. If we can confirm, say, the Big Bang theory, that doesn’t at all cause me to question my faith that God created the Big Bang.

I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.

Driven by the forces of love, the fragments of the world seek each other so that the world may come to being.

Right now, we don’t have a very good relation with creation.

A letdown is worth a few songs. A heartbreak is worth a few albums.

The writer may very well serve a movement of history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of course create it.

People think because I’ve got some success, I’ve made it, but in my eyes it’s like, ‚How long has Jay Z been in the business? How many albums has he got?‘ Not that I’m trying to be Jay Z, but I am trying to be around for a long time.

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’ve been asking myself: ‚Why put together these things – CDs, albums?‘ The answer I came up with is, well, sometimes it’s artistically viable. It’s not just a random collection of songs. Sometimes the songs have a common thread, even if it’s not obvious or even conscious on the artists‘ part.

With all singers, insecurity is your best security. That’s why we’re such loud people and why we walk all funny. You think, ‚Are people interested?‘ But I think our band has something and they know we don’t just put albums out. We do think about it.

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.

Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath.

God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.

I’m not into albums that are meant to sound perfect.

What was God doing before the divine creation?

I do write a lot of children’s songs, and I’m going to do a children’s television show, which also means I’ll be doing a lot of albums. So I do hope my future will hold a lot of things for children.

I like to change characters and then, slowly I believe the audience treat me as, like an actor who can fight. It’s not like an action star.

Your life is like a play with several acts. Some of the characters who enter have short roles to play, others, much larger. Some are villains and others are good guys. But all of them are necessary; otherwise, they wouldn’t be in the play. Embrace them all, and move on to the next act.

Our Heavenly Father loves you. He has created you to be successful and to have joy.

In writing, I apply my feminine side and respect the mystery involved in creation.

In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.

I guess it’s flattering that everyone believed I was those characters, but it also is dehumanizing.

No greater thing 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.

In 1975, when my students were kidnapped by rebels, I was accused of hiding instead of trying to save them, and of not giving enough money for their ransom. I wasn’t believed.

Since God created the world, He also created reality.

From the dust of the earth, from the common elementary fund, the Creator has made Homo sapiens. From the same material he has made every other creature, however noxious and insignificant to us. They are earth-born companions and our fellow mortals.

I went through a period when I felt my film characters were having more fun than I was. It might partly explain why I ended up tattooed or doing certain extreme things in my life.

Like anything else that happens on its own, the act of writing is beyond currency. Money is great stuff to have, but when it comes to the act of creation, the best thing is not to think of money too much. It constipates the whole process.

Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.

Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation.