It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.

Art is the proper task of life.

Writing a song is so personal. You have to have trust in someone you’re working with; otherwise, you’re not gonna come out with something that’s really you.

Painting is an infinitely minute part of my personality.

Everything I’ve been thinking, every vision, even down to every shot I throw, it just ends up here in reality. Whether it was in a fight and how to react or whether it was in a stadium with screaming fans or whether I was in a fancy car or the best clothes ever, I always put myself somewhere.

I seem to turn out stories that violate the discipline of the short story form and don’t obey the rules of progression for novels. I don’t think about a particular form: I think more about fiction, let’s say a chunk of fiction.

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.

What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea.

The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.

Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.

First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.

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.

If you judge, investigate.

When I did have some success, it further emboldens you to be like, ‚No, I’m just going to write what I feel I should write.‘

Fiction is such a world of freedom, it’s wonderful. If you want someone to fly, they can fly.

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

What makes a song last is real content from a mind that is thinking a little bit harder about certain things. A lot of artists don’t really think that hard.

Writing is such a strange, utterly mysterious process. First, there was nothing; then, suddenly, there was something. I don’t know where thoughts are born. Where the hell does it come from? I don’t know. I really don’t know.

We should not look at terrorism from the nameplates – which group they belong to, what is their geographical location, who are the victims. These individual groups or names will keep changing. Today you are looking at the Taliban or ISIS; tomorrow you might be looking at another name.

You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.

The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.

All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.

The racing is quite boring, sometimes. It’s hard to see how it pulls in fans.

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.

In the last analysis, what we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do.

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.

‚Kiss Land‘ is like a horror movie.

I ain’t never far away from a pencil and paper or a tape recorder.

The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected.

Many children make up, or begin to make up, imaginary languages. I have been at it since I could write.

The arts have only ever interested a small minority of people, which acted as a kind of nursery to support artists.

Effective philanthropy requires a lot of time and creativity – the same kind of focus and skills that building a business requires.

I can say I’d honestly rather be happy than have 30 to 40 songs that I’ve written about these thrilling, exciting, horrible, unhappy times.

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.

Criticism is prejudice made plausible.

Doing collections, doing fashion is like a non-stop dialogue.

I really, truly believe that writing comes out of the body; of course, the mind is working as well, but it’s a double thing and that doubleness is united. I mean, you can’t separate persona from psyche; you just can’t do it.

Humor is the most engaging cowardice.

To some extent I happily don’t know what I’m doing. I feel that it’s an artist’s responsibility to trust that.

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

Innovation has nothing to do with how many R & D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R & D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.

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

I didn’t live at school, I lived where I could and studied what I enjoyed studying. I took what I wanted from that education but was making my first record at the same time. I don’t know anyone from school. I was just leading a different life. I was really interested in writing and other things.

Never regret what you don’t write.

You have to steal a lot. You have to have a criminal mentality to be a film director.

But when I hear a great song, I can’t help but be inspired by it, regardless of whatever genre that song falls under.

A critic should be taught to criticise a work of art without making any reference to the personality of the author.

You make ‚em, I amuse ‚em.

It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.

I can’t make a song for a particular person or demographic. If I love it, I’m gonna do it. I have to perform it for the rest of my life. A song is like a tattoo – you can never get away from it.

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.

In my younger days, I was trying to write sophisticated prose and fantastic stories.

There’s an ecstatic side to writing. It’s like jazz. It just has a life.

‚The Lion‘ all began with a picture of a faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself, ‚Let’s try to make a story about it.‘

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.

The mind of the painter must resemble a mirror, which always takes the colour of the object it reflects and is completely occupied by the images of as many objects as are in front of it.

When I start to write, I don’t have any plan at all. I just wait for the story to come.

You know those things that you throw the twigs into and it spits them out? That’s what I do. The branches are like life, and I throw them into my head and some of it comes out as humor.

Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.

It seemed like a very small possibility for me to become an artist. I didn’t have the need to be on the stage; I didn’t feel the need to be heard. I just needed to write.