It is a rare mind indeed that can render the hitherto non-existent blindingly obvious. The cry ‚I could have thought of that‘ is a very popular and misleading one, for the fact is that they didn’t, and a very significant and revealing fact it is too.

All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant’s revolving door.

Every picture has its own demands, and every picture stimulates something within you to tell it a certain way. I don’t know what that is; I don’t think too much about that.

The day when I am no more than a writer I shall cease to be a writer.

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.

Whatever has happened in my quest for innovation has been part of my quest for immaculate reality.

Substitute ‚damn‘ every time you’re inclined to write ‚very‘; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

I certainly agree that putting everything into little genres is counterproductive. You’re not going to get too many surprises if you only focus on the stuff that fits inside the box that you know.

Music is changing so quickly, and the landscape of the music industry itself is changing so quickly, that everything new, like Spotify, all feels to me a bit like a grand experiment.

Yes, and I can sit down on a white piece of paper and work because I don’t believe too much into inspiration, only I’m waiting for inspiration, work and then inspiration may come. It’s a little too easy to say that.

I am the freest author in the world.

It’s very hard for our parents who see us enter a world that they can’t imagine.

Most people dream a dream when they are asleep. But to be a writer, you have to dream while you are awake, intentionally. So I get up early in the morning, 4 o’clock, and I sit at my desk and what I do is just dream. After three or four hours, that’s enough. In the afternoon, I run. The next day, the dream will continue.

People may think I’m trying something new by telling stories, but they’re just jokes connected to give the illusion of stories. But really, I just continue using my imagination and creating. That’s what I do.

I think sometimes – not always – I write songs that are accessible.

I never played with anything like toys.

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.

I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success… such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.

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

I can operate in half-a-song format.

You need to think outside the box. You need to think differently if you want to sustain what, for me, is my peak performance: the very best that I can achieve as an athlete every day.

The press, the machine, the railway, the telegraph are premises whose thousand-year conclusion no one has yet dared to draw.

There is no blue without yellow and without orange.

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.

You ask me if I keep a notebook to record my great ideas. I’ve only ever had one.

Most people are unable to write because they are unable to think, and they are unable to think because they congenitally lack the equipment to do so, just as they congenitally lack the equipment to fly over the moon.

Literally wrote ‚Starboy‘ in 30 minutes.

I’ve had quite a lot of luck with dreams. I’ve often awoken in the night with a phrase or even a whole song in my head.

Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.

A lot of the problems I had with fame I was bringing on myself. A lot of self-loathing, a lot of woe-is-me. Now I’m learning to see the positive side of things, instead of, like, ‚I can’t go to Kmart. I can’t take my kids to the haunted house.‘

I think it is perfectly natural for any artist to admire intensely and love a young man. It is an incident in the life of almost every artist.

I’ve never had writer’s block.

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.

It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.

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.

I’m honored that everybody’s inspired off my inspiration.

I have so many designs and video ideas and lyrics in my head, so I always try to be productive.

It’s all make believe, isn’t it?

I think that by staying true to myself and making music from my heart, the blessings come.

I have to write 100 songs before you write the first good one.

Everything that’s created comes out of silence. Your thoughts emerge from the nothingness of silence. Your words come out of this void. Your very essence emerged from emptiness. All creativity requires some stillness.

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.

People like Frank Zappa and Bryan Ferry knew we could pick and choose from the history of music, stick things together looking for friction and energy. They were more like playwrights; they invented characters and wrote a life around them.

Beautiful sentences pop into my head. Beautiful sentences that aren’t always absolutely accurate. Then, I have to choose between the beautiful sentence and being absolutely accurate. It can be a difficult choice.

People ask me where I got my singing style. I didn’t copy my style from anybody.

What we want to be is something completely new. There is no physical analog for what Amazon.com is becoming.

When I stop working the rest of the day is posthumous. I’m only really alive when I’m writing.

Tesla is here to stay and keep fighting for the electric car revolution.

All of my music is honest.

Sometimes I think that there’s a fine line between impressionistic and messy.

An artist needn’t be a clergyman or a churchwarden, but he certainly must have a warm heart for his fellow men.

I don’t know how to function without music. When I’m not making it, I’m listening to it. It gives me courage and takes care of my mind.

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

I think most of the important stuff on the Internet has been built. There will be continued innovation, for sure, but the great problems of the Internet have essentially been solved.

I see drawings and pictures in the poorest of huts and the dirtiest of corners.

I made all my generals out of mud.

Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.

California is not just the Golden State. We are also the Internet State.

I’m an inventor.

Painting is an infinitely minute part of my personality.

Never regret what you don’t write.