I’ve had mixtapes that have been better than albums I’ve heard from other artists. I take my time; I put my heart into it.

Part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians, poets, and artists, and zoologists, and historians. They also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world. But if it hadn’t been computer science, these people would have been doing amazing things in other fields.

Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.

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.‘

When I was five, I think, that’s when I started wanting to be an actress. I loved to play. I didn’t like the world around me because it was kind of grim, but I loved to play house. It was like you could make your own boundaries.

Some artists and indie musicians see Spotify fairly positively – as a way of getting noticed, of getting your music out there where folks can hear it risk-free.

I own a ’66 Jaguar. That’s the guitar I polish, and baby – I refuse to let anyone touch it when I jump into the crowd.

Whatever is on the page is what I’m married to. I’m very prepared. I’m a thespian. I don’t like to improv. I don’t like to go off course ‚cause I think that’s where stuff happens. When you stick to the material ‚cause it’s written so well, that’s where the magic happens.

I learn poetry, learn text, and that really keeps you alive.

What I cry out for, like every being, with my whole life and all my earthly passion, is something very different from an equal to cherish: it is a God to adore.

I made all my generals out of mud.

I just have a relationship with my imagination. It’s like my friend, almost.

Anything you put your mind to and add your imagination into can make your life a lot better and a lot more fun.

My passion is bringing storylines around and constructing a full body of work rather than just a 16-bar verse.

There’s a reason why the Foo Fighters don’t blast out Nirvana songs every night: because we have a lot of respect for them. You know, that’s hallowed ground. We have to be careful. We have to tread lightly. We have talked about it before, but the opportunity hasn’t really come up, or it just hasn’t felt right.

If you hear a voice within you say ‚you cannot paint,‘ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.

Basically, I live to do gigs.

Artists have a responsibility to speak and to act when governments fail, and if we don’t do that, we really deserve the world we get.

I am a very emotional guy. What I love, I do with all I have.

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.

I loved writing for kids, I loved talking to children about what I’d written, I don’t want to leave that behind.

If you’re going to spend two years of your life on something, it has to matter to you; you have to be passionate about it.

My dad has kind of been the standard for me, he played 16 years in the league, and since I’ve been in the league, every year that I go through and deal with the scratches, the bumps and bruises, just the grind that it is to go through one NBA season.

Begin noticing and being careful about keeping your imagination free of thoughts that you do not wish to materialize. Instead, initiate a practice of filling your creative thoughts to overflow with ideas and wishes that you fully intend to manifest. Honor your imaginings regardless of others seeing them as crazy or impossible.

All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.

The best author will be the one who is ashamed to become a writer.

There’s not much time to unwind, but you know what, it’s because I love what I do. I look forward to the season. I look forward to playing games. It doesn’t ever feel like work.

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

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.

Ideas excite me, and as soon as I get excited, the adrenaline gets going and the next thing I know I’m borrowing energy from the ideas themselves.

Japan’s very interesting. Some people think it copies things. I don’t think that anymore. I think what they do is reinvent things. They will get something that’s already been invented and study it until they thoroughly understand it. In some cases, they understand it better than the original inventor.

One often makes music to supplement one’s world.

Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.

Why did I become Jackie Chan? Mostly because I work very hard. When people were sleeping, I was still training.

I believe in sketching because there is something very sensitive in sketching, you know, in sketches that you don’t have out of a computer that looks the same like everybody even if, later on, the dresses are OK, but I like to sketch, and I like to see trails made after my sketches that look the same. It is you know, what I like.

A Khaled record is always the best.

An intellectual is a person who’s found one thing that’s more interesting than sex.

Creativity is the key to success in the future, and primary education is where teachers can bring creativity in children at that level.

I thought that I wrote songs and wrote music, and that was sort of what I thought I was best at doing. And because nobody else was ever doing my songs, I felt – you know, I had to go out and do them.

Music, for me, is vital. Punjabi, Bollywood, Sufi, RnB… I listen to it all. When I’m not listening to music, you will find me chatting with friends. Off the field, I just let my instincts take over. I certainly don’t think about batting, or which bowlers I’m going to face.

The assumption is that your personal life has to be a mess to create, but how much chaos can you allow in before it takes over?

History shows us that in times of people feeling like they are in need of some sort of rebellion or protests, the artists rise because the poetry we create about pain and its relationship to culture in the world begins to soothe and heal people who are feeling confused or afraid.

Irrespective of whether you have talent or not, one has to work hard. Just being talented doesn’t mean anything; you can end up wasting it before you realize.

People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed around – the music and the ideas.

The thing about the 600 words, I mean some day, you can do a very, very, very hard day’s work and not write a word, just revising, or you would scribble a few words.

All the breaks you need in life wait within your imagination, Imagination is the workshop of your mind, capable of turning mind energy into accomplishment and wealth.

I’ve rarely seen video screens used well in a music concert.

Perhaps it’s good for one to suffer. Can an artist do anything if he’s happy? Would he ever want to do anything? What is art, after all, but a protest against the horrible inclemency of life?

The society based on production is only productive, not creative.

You have to put in many, many, many tiny efforts that nobody sees or appreciates before you achieve anything worthwhile.

I don’t give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.

No great thing is created suddenly.

I think that, whatever happens, I’m just happy I’ve written those songs and I’ve made an album. That’s really big for me, and I’m proud of that.

When everything works best, it’s not because you chose writing but because writing chose you. It’s when you’re mad with it, it’s when it’s stuffed in your ears, your nostrils, under your fingernails. It’s when there’s no hope but that.

You might sooner get lightning out of incense smoke than true action or passion out of your modern English religion.

Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!

Hip-hop saved my life, man. It’s the only thing I’ve ever been even decent at. I don’t know how to do anything else.

I just kept touring and touring until it became second nature to go onstage, perform, and sing.

This land is your land and this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway.

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.

Why did I write? Because I found life unsatisfactory.