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.

I don’t invest in ideas because ideas are a dime a dozen. I could steal the idea pretty quickly.

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

Every now and then I will see a word as if for the first time, and suddenly appreciate that Evian is ‚naive‘ spelled backward, or that Bosnia is an anagram of ‚bonsai.‘

I have a slight bit of OCD, I think. I’m not walking around flipping light switches. But when I say I’m going to do something, I have to do it.

I decided to sell my drawings. However, I didn’t want people to buy my drawings because the professor of physics isn’t supposed to be able to draw – isn’t that wonderful – so I made up a false name.

The finest clothing made is a person’s own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.

Who I am on stage is very, very different to who I am in real life.

I am particularly drawn to the form of meditation called Japa. I know it works.

Once you get into space, you can really unleash a lot of creativity, but the launch itself? I have been through all of the creative ways, and believe me, chemical rockets are the best.

Ideas have a short shelf life. You must act on them before the expiration date.

Throw off your worries when you throw off your clothes at night.

I worked with someone who told me they’d never like me. But for some reason, I just felt like I needed her approval. So I started changing myself to please her. It made me stop being social and friendly. I was so unhappy.

It’s a curse. I ask God to take this away from me all the time. I do not like being an artist.

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

I just kind of wake up with a new idea and new dreams every day, and I follow that dream, as they say.

Art’s everything we hope life would be, a lot of times.

I’m kind of claustrophobic… It’s not even like enclosed spaces. It’s like I hate being stuck in one band, you know? Just being stuck is the biggest drag, for fear that, you know, just that you can’t get out.

Paintings have a life of their own that derives from the painter’s soul.

I just genuinely feel that that’s what you do when you’re an artist: You stick up for the people around you.

For what Harley Street specialist has time to understand the body, let alone the mind or both in combination, when he is a slave to thirteen thousand a year?

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

If I feel anxious every time someone is staring at me, well, I can’t control what they stare at, but my reaction is, I’m just not going to go outside the house. I’m going to stay in and chill. And when I do go out, I understand what comes along with that.

At Microsoft there are lots of brilliant ideas but the image is that they all come from the top – I’m afraid that’s not quite right.

Meditation is difficult for many people because their thoughts are always on some distant object or place. One form of meditation is to label the thought as it appears and then choose to let it go.

The thing about being an artist today is you get to develop right in front of people’s eyes before you even put out an album.

I don’t think there’s such a thing as autobiographical fiction. If I say it happened, it happened, even if only in my mind.

I want to be an artist, not… a celluloid aphrodisiac.

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.

Disneyland is a work of love. We didn’t go into Disneyland just with the idea of making money.

A sad soul can kill quicker than a germ.

If I’m inspired to make a certain kind of song, I’m going to make that kind of song, no matter if it’s what they know me as or think I am.

Fashion is here to help make people look very important. If they have good taste and choose what suits them, I give them options on how they can do that. It’s always sexy, and it’s always with the same result: making women look fantastic.

Key is never be afraid of being yourself. Never!

Collecting facts is important. Knowledge is important. But if you don’t have an imagination to use the knowledge, civilization is nowhere.

New ideas pass through three periods: 1) It can’t be done. 2) It probably can be done, but it’s not worth doing. 3) I knew it was a good idea all along!

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.

That terrible mood of depression of whether it’s any good or not is what is known as The Artist’s Reward.

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

Memories are thoughts that arise. They’re not realities. Only when you believe that they are real, then they have the power over you. But when you realize it’s just another thought arising about the past, then you can have a spacious relationship with that thought. The thought no longer has you in its grip.

I try not to think about my life. I have no life. I need therapy.

I do some kind of work, whether writing or painting or recording, on a daily basis. And it’s so essential that when I’m involved in the actual process, my so-called ‚real life‘ becomes almost incidental, which becomes worrying.

When people need love and understanding and support the most is when they deserve it the least.

I don’t have much positive to say about motor neuron disease, but it taught me not to pity myself because others were worse off, and to get on with what I still could do. I’m happier now than before I developed the condition.

Every bad situation is a blues song waiting to happen.

I guess I’m just inspired to tell stories.

The only frustrating thing about jail is that I can’t make music.

If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.

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.

Everybody always laughs because I feel so much more comfortable with, like, a giant paper bag on my whole body and paint on my face. Sometimes I try really hard to take it all off. But inevitably what’s underneath is still not a straight edge. And I don’t think it ever will be.

I’m in this business to be creative – I’ll even diminish it and say to be a content provider.

It is in the treatment of trifles that a person shows what they are.

I don’t see myself as a pop artist. Like, when you hear ‚pop,‘ you’re like, ‚Oh, bubblegum, jumpy little girly stuff,‘ and I feel like, ‚Uh-uh. That’s not me.‘

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?

Why did I write? Because I found life unsatisfactory.

Every artist was first an amateur.

Romantic art deals with the exception and with the individual. Good people, belonging as they do to the normal, and so, commonplace type, are artistically uninteresting.

I know from personal experience how damaging it can be to live with bitterness and unforgiveness. I like to say it’s like taking poison and hoping your enemy will die. And it really is that harmful to us to live this way.

Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.

There are only 3 colors, 10 digits, and 7 notes; its what we do with them that’s important.

I enjoy being involved in making the artwork for albums and stupid stuff like that.