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

You can’t always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream.

And I wound up in New Orleans for all those years and it was a great place, really a catalyst creatively.

Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.

Innovation can only occur where you can breathe free.

An unimaginative person can neither be reverent or kind.

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.

It would be a terrific innovation if you could get your mind to stretch a little further than the next wisecrack.

Originality is really important.

As the poet said, ‚Only God can make a tree,‘ probably because it’s so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.

I think when people make a record with a goal in mind – like taking it to the next level or making them seem more mature – that gets in the way of writing great songs.

See that the imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man.

As an entrepreneur, as an investor, I’m trying to be as educated as I can to where the progression of technological capability is going and what it does to these different categories that, me as an artist and an influencer, I can get involved and bring value.

No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time a steady eye.

Writing is a solitary experience. I’m extremely superstitious. If I talk about the book or name the title out loud before finishing, I feel the energy I need to write will be drained. It’s so intimate, I can’t even share it with my wife.

I’m no hillbilly singer.

When art dresses in worn-out material it is most easily recognized as art.

Fans are my favorite thing in the world. I’ve never been the type of artist who has that line drawn between their friends and their fans. The line’s always been really blurred for me. I’ll hang out with them after the show. I’ll hang out with them before the show. If I see them in the mall, I’ll stand there and talk to them for 10 minutes.

When I started working on ambient music, my idea was to make music that was more like painting.

The artist in me cries out for design.

I performed in a bowling alley before while people were still bowling. Cut the check, and I will perform anywhere.

Science fiction is any idea that occurs in the head and doesn’t exist yet, but soon will, and will change everything for everybody, and nothing will ever be the same again. As soon as you have an idea that changes some small part of the world you are writing science fiction. It is always the art of the possible, never the impossible.

I just do the best I can and write something interesting, to tell stories in an interesting way and move forward from there.

Modern poets talk against business, poor things, but all of us write for money. Beginners are subjected to trial by market.

I think my first album opened a lot of doors for me to push the freedom of speech to the limit.

You see something, then it clicks with something else, and it will make a story. But you never know when it’s going to happen.

All great art is the work of the whole living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul.

PowerPoint may not be of any use for you in a presentation, but it may liberate you in another way, an artistic way. Who knows.

When I’m writing a record, I kind of don’t listen to much music. Just because I want to be inspired solely on the emotion; just based on how it feels.

Every collaboration helps you grow. With Bowie, it’s different every time. I know how to create settings, unusual aural environments. That inspires him. He’s very quick.

A song is anything that can walk by itself.

The human body has two ends on it: one to create with and one to sit on. Sometimes people get their ends reversed. When this happens they need a kick in the seat of the pants.

There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it.

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone.

I really wanted to be a model when I was little. I loved photography, and I loved being on camera. But I was short and chubby, so I couldn’t. Anyway, being an artist is way more interesting than just being a model because it’s about you and what you want to be. You’re not being treated like a clothes hanger.

Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.

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’ve never written a song in my life. It’s all a big hoax.

I think that the idea of having a different approach to every single one of my albums is so exciting to me. I never want to make the same record twice. Why do it? What’s the point?

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.

There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It’s always been my way of expressing what, for me, is inexpressible by any other means.

I tried to give the world a bit of creativity, lyrics. And for me, I will always represent music from Puerto Rico, reggaeton, Latin music.

‚Two Voices,‘ from my album with Peter Schwalm, is an intact dream-poem. I awoke one night with an image of a piece of paper and all the words of the poem written on it, so I just blundered down to the kitchen table and ‚copied it out.‘

Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything, or creating anything. Period. If you ain’t desperate at some point, you ain’t interesting.

There is in me an anarchy and frightful disorder. Creating makes me die a thousand deaths, because it means making order, and my entire being rebels against order. But without it I would die, scattered to the winds.

An idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at all.

Every artist wants something different out the game.

Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to conceive.

Perhaps it’s good for one to suffer. Can an artist do anything if he’s happy? Would he ever want to do anything? What is art, after all, but a protest against the horrible inclemency of life?

I love Wiz Khalifa.

A collection is not just one basic idea. It comes from something that is in the air, something you suddenly like and put down on paper and then work out.

It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection.

We must use time creatively.

A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting.

Art is not a thing; it is a way.

Music has the power to inspire the world.

Genius is a potential that lives within you and every other human being. You have many moments of genius in your lifetime. These are the times when you have a uniquely brilliant idea and implement it even if only you are aware of how fantastic it is.

Generally, a writer of force is anywhere from 20 years to 200 years ahead of his generation.

The totalitarian world produces backwardness because it does such violence to the spirit, thwarting the human impulse to create, to enjoy, to worship.

Nothing, indeed, is more dangerous to the young artist than any conception of ideal beauty: he is constantly led by it either into weak prettiness or lifeless abstraction: whereas to touch the ideal at all, you must not strip it of vitality.

I am the freest author in the world.