I’ve never been a very prolific person, so when creativity flows, it flows. I find myself scribbling on little notepads and pieces of loose paper, which results in a very small portion of my writings to ever show up in true form.

I’ve been trying to… Having been an English literary graduate, I’ve been trying to avoid the idea of doing art ever since. I think the idea of art kills creativity.

When you seek the presence of your creative Spirit and are filled with passion about virtually everything you undertake, you’ll successfully remove the roadblocks from your life and enjoy the active presence of Spirit.

I mean, what would I be doing if I couldn’t write? But that fortunately hasn’t proved to be the case and I can read any day. I still read a lot, and I can write any day, but much more slowly and fewer words.

You have to be practical. So every time I say, if you want to write a novel you have to be practical, people get bored. They are disappointed. They are expecting a more dynamic, creative, artistic thing to say. What I want to say is: you have to be practical.

Yet, it is true, poetry is delicious; the best prose is that which is most full of poetry.

All art is quite useless.

I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I’ll go for the gross-out. I’m not proud.

I push myself in a lot of aspects when I write a song. I write a piece and where most people would stop and say, ‚Oh, that’s the hook right there,‘ I’ll move that to the first four bars of the verse and do a new hook.

There are some who speak well and write badly. For the place and the audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than they think of without that warmth.

I knew I wanted to do something creative. I didn’t think I’d have the luxury of doing something like that, because I didn’t know anyone who had pursued anything they really adored, but I had dreams for singing or writing.

Reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice. And, of course, if there are no young readers and writers, there will shortly be no older ones. Literacy will be dead, and democracy – which many believe goes hand in hand with it – will be dead as well.

Writing and cookery are just two different means of communication.

I welcome and seek your ideas, but do not bring me small ideas; bring me big ideas to match our future.

But I think there are a set of experiences that turn a potential writer into a working writer, and then there are places in your life were you start to recognize what you want to do.

He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book.

I’ve always felt that what I have going for me is not my imagination, because everyone has an imagination. What I have is a relentlessly controlled imagination. What looks like wild invention is actually quite carefully calculated.

If there’s not drama and negativity in my life, all my songs will be really wack and boring or something.

There are definitely people who disagree with certain creative decisions you make. Pleasing everyone is pretty hard.

It’s true that at the time I was fond of Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan, and it was from them that I learned about this kind of simple, swift-paced style, but the main reason for the style of my first novel is that I simply did not have the time to write sustained prose.

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

The thing about fantasy – there are certain things you just don’t do in fantasy.

I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk.

The human race is governed by its imagination.

Artistic temperament is the disease that afflicts amateurs.

Sporadic thoughts will pop into my head and I’ll have to go write something down, and the next thing you know I’ve written a whole song in an hour.

Many are they who have a taste and love for drawing, but no talent; and this will be discernible in boys who are not diligent and never finish their drawings with shading.

I criticize by creation – not by finding fault.

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

I don’t think of myself as an artist. I’m just a guy who can write.

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.

I’ll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there’s evidence of any thinking going on inside it.

‚The New Yorker‘ was really my first experience with serious editing. Previously, I’d more or less just had copyediting with a few suggestions – not much.

I have fun with ideas; I play with them.

Being a hybrid maker off and on over the years, I’m very comfortable with the idea and have been the subject of quite a few pretty good mash-ups myself.

It is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one’s own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane.

I know that one of the great arts that the writer develops is the art of saying, ‚No. No, I’m finished. Bye.‘ And leaving it alone. I will not write it into the ground. I will not write the life out of it. I won’t do that.

Music has the power to inspire the world.

When I’m writing, I don’t feel neurotic. So it’s better for the family if I’m working.

If you do things, whether it’s acting or music or painting, do it without fear – that’s my philosophy. Because nobody can arrest you and put you in jail if you paint badly, so there’s nothing to lose.

All through my writing life, I’ve had this impulse to write autobiographical works.

As long as my music is real, it’s no limit to how many ears I can grab.

I kinda like the idea of having an album that’s all me.

I’ve tried to reduce profanity but I reduced so much profanity when writing the book that I’m afraid not much could come out. Perhaps we will have to consider it simply as a profane book and hope that the next book will be less profane or perhaps more sacred.

Art is not a thing; it is a way.

With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.

It’s so tedious writing cookbooks or writing the recipes because I’ve never been much of a measurer. But to write a book, you have to measure everything.

If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water.

I don’t want to use my creative energy on somebody else’s user interface.

I don’t believe in ‚thinking‘ old. Although I’ve transitioned through many bodies – a baby, toddler, child, teen, young adult, mid-life and older adult – my spirit is unchanged. I support my body with exercise, my mind with reading and writing, and my spirit with the knowing that I am part of the Divine source of all life.

I was terrible at straight items. When I wrote obituaries, my mother said the only thing I ever got them to do was die in alphabetical order.

I’m not a very creative person, you know? I’m not really an art person. I’m not a great reader or writer or artist or musician.

Genius is a potential that lives within you and every other human being. You have many moments of genius in your lifetime. These are the times when you have a uniquely brilliant idea and implement it even if only you are aware of how fantastic it is.

I used to consider the listener. But now I’m in a space where, if I’m not inspired, I can’t really do the music. I can’t feel it.

Art is not a treasure in the past or an importation from another land, but part of the present life of all living and creating peoples.

Editing is now the easiest thing on earth to do, and all the things that evolved out of word processing – ‚Oh, let’s put that sentence there, let’s get rid of this‘ – have become commonplace in films and music too.

The only really committed artist is he who, without refusing to take part in the combat, at least refuses to join the regular armies and remains a freelance.

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.

When younger writers and poets, musicians and painters are weakened by a stemming of funds, they come to me saddened, not as full of dreams and excitement and ideas. I am then weakened and diminished, and made less rich.

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

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