Necessity… the mother of invention.

It would be great to be 105 and still making films.

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.

If I haven’t any talent for writing books or newspaper articles, well, then I can always write for myself.

There are events which are so great that if a writer has participated in them his obligation is to write truly rather than assume the presumption of altering them with invention.

For me, genres are a way for people to easily categorize music. But it doesn’t have to define you. It doesn’t have to limit you.

And so I think that the idea of America working with other countries to solve problems is good for us, and it is part of digging us out of the ‚my way or the highway‘ approach that was evident in the previous eight years.

The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.

I have already demonstrated, by crucial tests, the practicability of signaling by my system from one to any other point of the globe, no matter how remote, and I shall soon convert the disbelievers.

You know, Nirvana used to start rehearsals with the three of us just jamming. For, like, a half an hour, just noise and freeform crap – and usually it was crap. But sometimes things would come from it, and some songs on Nevermind came from that, and ‚Heart Shaped Box‘ and stuff on ‚In Utero‘ just happened that way.

I know how fiction matters to me, because if I want to express myself, I have to make up a story. Some people call it imagination. To me, it’s not imagination. It’s just a way of watching.

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.

Educationists should build the capacities of the spirit of inquiry, creativity, entrepreneurial and moral leadership among students and become their role model.

Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power to that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.

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.

It’s the way I study – to understand something by trying to work it out or, in other words, to understand something by creating it. Not creating it one hundred percent, of course; but taking a hint as to which direction to go but not remembering the details. These you work out for yourself.

I’m not in control of my muse. My muse does all the work.

It’s just human nature to try and figure things out. So, when we’re in the midst of a situation, we usually try to reason our way through it.

Everything is my demon muse. I have a muse which whispers in my ear and says, ‚Do this, do that,‘ but it’s my demon who provokes me.

Objects in pictures should so be arranged as by their very position to tell their own story.

If there was nothing wrong in the world there wouldn’t be anything for us to do.

What is Apple, after all? Apple is about people who think ‚outside the box,‘ people who want to use computers to help them change the world, to help them create things that make a difference, and not just to get a job done.

I wish myself to be a prop, if anything, for my songs. I want to be the vehicle for my songs. I would like to colour the material with as much visual expression as is necessary for that song.

Style is that which indicates how the writer takes himself and what he is saying. It is the mind skating circles around itself as it moves forward.

Every movie I make teaches me something. That’s why I keep making them.

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone.

When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That’s when you can get more creative in solving problems.

Everyone I look up to is bringing me into the tech world. You’d be surprised by all the music people in it, invested in it.

There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves.

A teacher should have a creative mind.

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.

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

Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

So vast is art, so narrow human wit.

Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.

There’s an urgent need to stop reacting to each immediate vexing issue in isolation. Such response often creates unanticipated second-order effects and even more problems for us.

The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.

It is better to imitate ancient than modern work.

Young people can create beautiful things.

If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.

Research is creating new knowledge.

Painting is an infinitely minute part of my personality.

There are many things I do where the centre of it is… It’s almost more my humanitarian work than art.

I write for the same reason I breathe – because if I didn’t, I would die.

The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be… The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

Art is not a thing; it is a way.

I do some kind of work, whether writing or painting or recording, on a daily basis. And it’s so essential that when I’m involved in the actual process, my so-called ‚real life‘ becomes almost incidental, which becomes worrying.

You know, as a writer, I’m more of a listener than a writer, cuz if I hear something I will write it down.

What is a television apparatus to man, who has only to shut his eyes to see the most inaccessible regions of the seen and the never seen, who has only to imagine in order to pierce through walls and cause all the planetary Baghdads of his dreams to rise from the dust.

Love is easy, and I love writing. You can’t resist love. You get an idea, someone says something, and you’re in love.

If tomorrow I want to release a rock album or I want to release a bachata album, nobody can tell me anything – why can’t I?

There’s a silly notion that failure’s not an option at NASA. Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.

It’s time to fundamentally change the way that we do business in Washington. To help build a new foundation for the 21st century, we need to reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative. That will demand new thinking and a new sense of responsibility for every dollar that is spent.

For novelists or musicians, if they really want to create something, they need to go downstairs and find a passage to get into the second basement. What I want to do is go down there, but still stay sane.

When I have a terrible need of – shall I say the word – religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.

An author writes a book, and that’s the book at that point. And if the author writes the book again, then somehow something has gone wrong, if you see what I mean.

You can write a song about being in love with someone, but you don’t have to be in love with anyone.

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

A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper and confined views. People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.