If there’s not drama and negativity in my life, all my songs will be really wack and boring or something.

Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

No one sells a song better than the person that wrote it.

All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.

Music is in my DNA!

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

People wanted me to do a CD-ROM of ‚Hitchhiker’s,‘ and I thought, ‚No, no.‘ I didn’t want to just sort of reverse-engineer yet another thing from a book I’d already written. I think that the digital media are interesting enough in their own right to be worth originating something in.

If you’re gonna make connections which are innovative… you have to not have the same bag of experiences as everyone else does.

Music can change the world because it can change people.

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.

When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain.

Music is this divine thing, the closest that we can get to something divine. It’s like this instinct we all own, and some of us have found a way to hear that music and write it down and share it with people.

Man’s only true happiness is to live in hope of something to be won by him. Reverence something to be worshipped by him, and love something to be cherished by him, forever.

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.

So there’s nothing more provocative than taking a genre that everybody who’s cool hates – and then making it cool.

The problem with fine art is that in most cases people have to make a special excursion to go and look at it: they can’t afford to own it. So it isn’t really part of their life in the way that music can be.

Always do whatever’s next.

Objects in pictures should so be arranged as by their very position to tell their own story.

Hope is the magic carpet that transports us from the present moment into the realm of infinite possibilities.

I have the Midas touch, in the way that when I hook up with a project, I feel, not speaking cocky or conceited, but there’s a confidence I have. I learned that from Muhammad Ali; I used to bodyguard him. He taught me about confidence. So when it comes to any job I work, I’m gonna do it good; I’m going to bring it over the top.

Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure.

You are never too young to learn, never too old to change.

When ‚Paul’s Boutique‘ came out, I was one of the fans that didn’t get it.

No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.

Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people.

Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.

No one’s policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analysing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes.

I don’t want to make niche-oriented music.

The whole slacker generation totally didn’t apply to us musically.

I can play a lot of different instruments adequately but nothing really well.

Until it’s on the radio or online, it’s not real. With U2, our album isn’t finished until it’s in the stores.

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.

The most genius thing about the way I create is to create with other geniuses.

Art is going to make a bigger comeback than ever. That’s the upside to things getting challenging.

We all gonna die eventually from something or other, but don’t be a wimp. Put up a good fight.

I’ve always been amazed by Da Vinci, because he worked out science on his own. He would work by drawing things and writing down his ideas. Of course, he designed all sorts of flying machines way before you could actually build something like that.

I listen to my old records and I think, ‚How did I ever get on the radio?‘

How I love David Bowie.

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

I remember being in Japan when Destiny’s Child put out ‚Independent Women,‘ and women there were saying how proud they were to have their own jobs, their own independent thinking, their own goals. It made me feel so good, and I realized that one of my responsibilities was to inspire women in a deeper way.

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.

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.

Punk was defined by an attitude rather than a musical style.

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.

I don’t think that you can be prescriptive about anything, I mean, life is too complicated. Maybe there are novels where the author has not in the least thought about it in terms of film, which can be turned into good films.

The lyrics are constructed as empirically as the music. I don’t set out to say anything very important.

You know, my sister sings, my brother plays drums in my band. My whole family is a bunch of musicians.

One of my big goals as a human being is to continue to write what’s really happening to me, even if it’s a tough pill to swallow for people around me… I do fear that if I ever were to have someone in my life who mattered, I would second-guess every one of my lyrics.

The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don’t like their rules, whose would you use?

With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.

I love Wiz Khalifa.

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.

You know, watching Dan Marino and Steve Young get nominated to the Hall of Fame… those guys are unbelievable and they did it for so long. I’d love to play like those guys, but there’s still a long way to go and a lot of growing.

I believe in being an innovator.

Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

My interest in creating anything is that it be useful.

Becoming an inspiration for kids is great. I want to inspire them to do whatever they want to.

The great end of life is not knowledge but action.

It confuses me and disappoints me when somebody says, ‚What does he do? What does he do?‘ My records are some of the biggest anthems ever. What do you think, they magically just appear? Obama walked out to my record.

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.