Instinct taught me 20 years ago to pace a song or a concert performance. That translates into pacing a story, pleasing a reading audience.

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’m not a marketing person. I don’t ask myself questions. I go by instinct.

A boy’s story is the best that is ever told.

I wanted to tell the story of Luong Ung, who’s a dear friend of mine.

Life is a song to me.

I always loved that old song ‚Banks of the Ohio‘ – it was always such a man’s song, so I’ve always wanted to record it.

Don’t overact the story of your name. Overact the story of your work.

The true and the approximately true are apprehended by the same faculty; it may also be noted that men have a sufficient natural instinct for what is true, and usually do arrive at the truth. Hence the man who makes a good guess at truth is likely to make a good guess at probabilities.

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.

Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.

I love the song ‚I Hope You Dance‘ by Lee Ann Womack. I was going to write that song, but someone beat me to it.

I sang a song at my sister’s wedding. My mother forced me into that, too. But that one felt all right.

Plot exposition that can be gently wound out by the authorial voice and internal monologue of a character in the length of a page has to be delivered in a matter of seconds on the stage.

Deep down, I know I have this intuition or instinct that a lot of creative people have, that their demons are also what make them create.

What happens if you stick at something long enough, and study it for so long, you have a different kind of intelligence. It’s not an intellectual thing. It’s almost like an animal intelligence. I call it our form of instinct, almost how a lion knows exactly where its prey is.

Life is so short. I would rather sing one song than interpret the thousand.

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.

When I listen to a song, I don’t say, ‚Oh my gosh, that vocal line she sang was the best thing I ever heard.‘ I’m thinking, ‚That lyric just moves me. That lyric just said what I feel better than I could say it myself.‘

I think ‚Invisible‘ is a great song, but I don’t know how accessible it is.

My life has been one great big joke, a dance that’s walked a song that’s spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.

The human being is a strange mixture of blind instinct, on one hand, and conscience, on the other.

Passion for fame: A passion which is the instinct of all great souls.

Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

‚Wrecking Ball‘ is a great song.

Hard times arouse an instinctive desire for authenticity.

The truth is often terrifying, which I think is one of the motifs of Larry and Andrew’s cinema. The cost of knowledge is an important theme. In the second and third films, they explore the consequences of Neo’s choice to know the truth. It’s a beautiful, beautiful story.

Acting is just a process of relaxation, actually. Knowing the text so well and trusting that the instinct and the subconscious mind, whatever you want to call it, is going to take over.

A woman knows by intuition, or instinct, what is best for herself.

Sing me a new song; the world is transfigured; all the Heavens are rejoicing.

The emotions in a song – the anger, aggression – have got to be legitimate.

Retaliation is related to nature and instinct, not to law. Law, by definition, cannot obey the same rules as nature.

The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.

Action is no less necessary than thought to the instinctive tendencies of the human frame.

Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning.

I’d love it if everyone knew one Foo Fighters song.

Two things control men’s nature, instinct and experience.

There can be no doubt that the average man blames much more than he praises. His instinct is to blame. If he is satisfied he says nothing; if he is not, he most illogically kicks up a row.

Some people focus more on sonics. Some people focus more on story. I focus on both sonics and story.

I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.

The ‚Billionaire‘ song is what my kids tease me with. They sing it to me. It’s funny.

Someone once threw me a small, brown, hairy kiwi fruit, and I threw a wastebasket over it until it was dead.