I’m not interested in people positioning me next to other artists.

There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it’s like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.

When I see a story, I ask: is this something I’d like to be in? Is this something I’d like to see? And if I’d like to see it, would I like to tell it?

You don’t have to be scared of me, because I am loyal. Why are people so scared of creative ideas and so scared of truth? All I want to do is do good.

I don’t like to write like God. It is only because you never do it, though, that the critics think you can’t do it.

Why, except as a means of livelihood, a man should desire to act on the stage when he has the whole world to act in, is not clear to me.

You see things; and you say ‚Why?‘ But I dream things that never were; and I say ‚Why not?‘

We are second-hand people. We have lived on what we have been told, either guided by our inclinations, our tendencies, or compelled to accept by circumstances and environment. We are the result of all kinds of influences, and there is nothing new in us, nothing that we have discovered for ourselves: nothing original, pristine, clear.

I’m still in love with what I do, with the idea of making things up, so hours when I write always feel like very blessed hours to me.

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.

I think kids are natural actors. You watch most kids; if they don’t have a toy, they’ll pick up a stick and make a toy out of it. Kids will daydream all the time.

I’m different than most people. When I cross the finish line of a big race, I see that people are ecstatic, but I’m thinking about what I’m going to do tomorrow. It’s as if my journey is everlasting, and there is no finish line.

The book is not really the container for the book. The book itself is the narrative. It’s the thing that people create.

In today’s world, having money has allowed people who are extremely uncool to think that they’re cool and carry it like that. People who really are cool and people who really are artists and have ideas have to literally turn in their cool card to society just to make it past the age of 28.

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.‘

A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.

All good art is an indiscretion.

It is better to create than to learn! Creating is the essence of life.

I’ve never gotten thick skin. If you close yourself off and you get this protective armor, there is a price you pay with that – of not feeling. And feeling is important when you are a songwriter.

My goal in music is to create nostalgic moments.

In Hollywood the woods are full of people that learned to write but evidently can’t read. If they could read their stuff, they’d stop writing.

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

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.

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

I wrote a few children’s books… not on purpose.

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

If you change and adapt your persona, you are seen as inauthentic; if you stay the angry young man, you fade from attention or seem tiresome.

A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.

For instance, I’m always fascinated to see whether, given the kind of fairly known and established form called popular music, whether there is some magic combination that nobody has hit upon before.

When I’m 40 and nobody wants to see me in a sparkly dress anymore, I’ll be like: ‚Cool, I’ll just go in the studio and write songs for kids.‘

To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater.

Stand-up comedy is mine: it’s my entity; it’s my brand; I own it. I do it when I want to do it.

The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one: dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation. I don’t think I solve problems in my poetry; I think I uncover the problems.

I wake up in the morning and my mind starts making sentences, and I have to get rid of them fast – talk them or write them down.

Doing graphic novels is cool! It’s fun! You get to write something, and then see it visually page by page, panel by panel, working with the artist, you get to see it fleshed out.

I don’t feel very comfortable defending my fashion except to say that people don’t have to buy it. You do have to consume. You have to live. If you’ve got the money to be able to afford it, then it’s really good to buy something from me, but don’t buy too much.

Would you believe in what you believe in if you were the only one who believed it?

I hoped to be able to write a novel which would enable me to live on it while I wrote the next.

It is a joy to be an artist, but it doesn’t mean very much unless that work is somehow useful in some way and contributes to others.

I like to choreograph and create and design the costumes and do it all and then step back and watch it and then move on to the next project.

I know what I believe, I know what I want to do, and I’m just comfortable saying it, and laying it out there.

Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the Divine.

It’s normal for human beings to identify with their own separate self. The problem is that we get caught in that notion of ourself as a separate individual and caught in that individual self’s agenda.

My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.

Some people focus more on sonics. Some people focus more on story. I focus on both sonics and story, but music sometimes, just music itself, can turn into more of a maths problem. I guess everything in life is a math problem, but it can be more about an empirical route to getting the symmetry that you want, and this vibe, sonically.

I try not to think about anything special while running. As a matter of fact, I usually run with my mind empty. However, when I run empty-minded, something naturally and abruptly crawls in sometime. That might become an idea that can help me with my writing.

I cannot with any real integrity perform songs I’ve done for 25 years. I don’t need the money. What I need is to feel that I am not letting myself down as an artist and that I still have something to contribute.

Everybody thinks making films back to back is a big deal but they did it all the time in the old days.

I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies.

I enjoy singing my songs in front of people. I enjoy being involved in making the artwork for albums and stupid stuff like that.

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.

At Sarah Lawrence, I realized that everybody was already what they were going to be. The painters were painting, the writers writing, the dancers dancing. And nobody wore any makeup. The art was uppermost.

I try to do the fancy things out there by going with both hands, making crossover moves, and having a certain creativity and flair to my game.

A solution built by an artist serves the artist more than the solution the capitalist comes up with.

If you want to talk about something new, you have to make up a new kind of language.

I want people to understand they have to live their own lives the way they want to and not just do what we do.

I’m a songwriter. Everything affects me.

I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the person grow to look like his portrait.

The art which we may call generally art of the wayside, as opposed to that which is the business of men’s lives, is, in the best sense of the word, Grotesque.

Everyone has their style and your style explains a lot about who you are – you feel me? I’ve had style since childhood, so I like to dress how I feel. But maybe I get carried away by some trends.