Music is not math. It’s science. You keep mixing the stuff up until it blows up on you, or it becomes this incredible potion.

The greatest progress is in the sciences that study the simplest systems. So take, say, physics – greatest progress there. But one of the reasons is that the physicists have an advantage that no other branch of sciences has. If something gets too complicated, they hand it to someone else.

People tried to change my concept of what music is. That music is work, but it’s not like that.

I was doing sold-out shows before I got radio play.

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.

I just make the pictures and where they fall is where they fall. If somebody likes them, that’s always nice. And if they don’t like them, then too bad.

If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that… I believe in what I do, and I’ll say it.

Perhaps when music has been shouting for so long, a quieter voice seems attractive.

If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it.

Until I began to learn to draw, I was never much interested in looking at art.

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

To love one that is great, is almost to be great one’s self.

Art is not a thing; it is a way.

Two things awe me most, the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.

Every artist was first an amateur.

I don’t sing because I’m happy; I’m happy because I sing.

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.

Many times, we miss out on God’s best because we give up too soon. We don’t realize how close we are to victory.

Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence.

The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances, and demonstrations for impressions.

Language is an intrinsic part of who we are and what has, for good or evil, happened to us.

Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith.

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.

I’ve never thought about songwriting as a weapon. I’ve only thought about it as a way to help me get through love and loss and sadness and loneliness and growing up.

All good art is an indiscretion.

Music is really driving my whole life.

At Sarah Lawrence, I realized that everybody was already what they were going to be. The painters were painting, the writers writing, the dancers dancing. And nobody wore any makeup. The art was uppermost.

I tell everybody, I get so much because I give so much. I give freely, I give all my time, give all my money, give all of my soul. I try to motivate people. I try to inspire them.

Life loves the liver of it.

So many people have this idea: I want to achieve something great or be somebody great. And they neglect the step that leads to greatness. They don’t honor this step at this moment because they have this idea of some future moment where they are going to be great.

I wrote a few children’s books… not on purpose.

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

When I do a picture and it’s 90% black, like ‚Bird,‘ I use 90% black people.

Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.

My superhero has always been Tendulkar, and it will be Tendulkar for life. He is someone who has inspired me immensely. Just watching him play for India, I used to dream of winning games for India, because he used to do it single handedly.

I just kind of wake up with a new idea and new dreams every day, and I follow that dream, as they say.

The more you practice, the better you get, the more freedom you have to create.

Words are also actions, and actions are a kind of words.

The capacity of the female mind for studies of the highest order cannot be doubted, having been sufficiently illustrated by its works of genius, of erudition, and of science.

They say the universe is expanding. That should help with the traffic.

We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.

Yes, the Bible should be taught in our schools because it is necessary to understand the Bible if we are to truly understand our own culture and how it came to be. The Bible has influenced every part of western culture from our art, music, and history, to our sense of fairness, charity, and business.

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.

If you love something – and there are things that I love – you do want more and more and more of it, but that’s not the way to produce good work.

It was very lucky for me as a writer that I studied the physical sciences rather than English. I wrote for my own amusement. There was no kindly English professor to tell me for my own good how awful my writing really was. And there was no professor with the power to order me what to read, either.

Man’s only true happiness is to live in hope of something to be won by him. Reverence something to be worshipped by him, and love something to be cherished by him, forever.

There is a great discovery still to be made in literature, that of paying literary men by the quantity they do not write.

I believe in being an innovator.

A man’s got to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book.

I want to thank The Beatles for almost single-handedly getting me out of writer’s block.

And you find as a writer there are certain spots on the planet where you write better than others, and I believe in that. And New Orleans is one of them.

When you write your first book aged 25 or so, you have 25 years of experience, albeit much of it juvenile experience. The second book comes after an extra year sitting in bookshops. Pretty soon, you begin to run on empty.

Think off-center.

In America there’s no way I can make the kind of movie I like to make.

My favorite artists always documented emotion. Marvin Gaye and Al Green and Sade and Aaliyah.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

Singing into a microphone and learning to play an instrument – learning to do your craft – that’s the most important thing! It’s not about what goes on in a computer!

I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.

It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.

I got a signed document from Bullock’s saying that they had such-and-such drawings on consignment. Of course, nobody bought any of them, but otherwise, I was a big success: I had my drawings on sale at Bullock’s!

I wanted to drop three albums in a year because no one had done it. It was bold, unheard of.