None of the records I make are ever a deliberate construction – they’re always an expression of who I am at the time and where I am in my life.

To take a few nouns, and a few pronouns, and adverbs and adjectives, and put them together, ball them up, and throw them against the wall to make them bounce. That’s what Norman Mailer did. That’s what James Baldwin did, and Joan Didion did, and that’s what I do – that’s what I mean to do.

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

Sometimes I get the start of a story from a memory, an anecdote, but that gets lost and is usually unrecognizable in the final story.

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 do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.

Whatever one of us blames in another, each one will find in his own heart.

Real riches are the riches possessed inside.

The experience of life consists of the experience which the spirit has of itself in matter and as matter, in mind and as mind, in emotion, as emotion, etc.

If I weren’t performing, I’d be a beauty editor or a therapist. I love creativity, but I also love to help others. My mother was a hairstylist, and they listen to everyone’s problems – like a beauty therapist!

I like to be in control of how I look and how I feel and how I act.

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

I’m confident in who I am. I’ve come to a place in my life where I’ve accepted things that are me, as opposed to feeling pressure to explain myself to people around me. That’s just the way I’ve always tried to be. It didn’t change when I became a star.

One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.

I put out one album one week, and I’m already worried about the next one. I feel a lot of emotion throughout the course of a day. But not to the point where you need to be worried about me.

You start to become successful, and everybody starts to drive your money train to the bank, and they’re not thinking anymore about what you want as an artist or if any of that even matters to you. It genuinely upsets people in my life that I don’t care about money, and that’s not my problem.

I always was a Christian… whatsoever a man thinks in his heart is who he is.

‚Two Voices,‘ from my album with Peter Schwalm, is an intact dream-poem. I awoke one night with an image of a piece of paper and all the words of the poem written on it, so I just blundered down to the kitchen table and ‚copied it out.‘

My mother says I was writing before I was crawling. I wrote in the dirt with a twig.

I’ve always had a problem with the average macho man – they’ve always been a threat to me.

That terrible mood of depression of whether it’s any good or not is what is known as The Artist’s Reward.

Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become.

Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.

No one sells a song better than the person that wrote it.

I draw from the crowd a lot.

Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.

A divorce is like an amputation: you survive it, but there’s less of you.

I always tell audiences when I talk about writing: Writing isn’t something I do; writing is something that I am. I am writing – it’s just an expression of me.

When I grow up, I want to be like Balvin.

I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.

We will be more successful in all our endeavors if we can let go of the habit of running all the time, and take little pauses to relax and re-center ourselves. And we’ll also have a lot more joy in living.

I’m a whopping 5 foot 4 inches tall. I’m not going to get any taller.

If you don’t like what you’re doing, then don’t do it.

When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.

As a young kid, I really wanted to be rich.

I’m not critic-proof, and I still take it personally, but I take it less personally now.

Thoughts are fine when you don’t confuse them with who you are, and then thoughts are not a problem. Thinking is a wonderful tool to create things in this world. It only becomes problematic and a source of suffering when you confuse thinking with who you are.

I wanted to imbue Ziggy with real flesh and blood and muscle, and it was imperative that I find Ziggy and be him.

The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.

O, you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you, and I would have ended my life – it was only my art that held me back. Ah, it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I felt was within me.

Our will is always for our own good, but we do not always see what that is.

College isn’t the place to go for ideas.

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

In heaven an angel is nobody in particular.

I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.

I’m here to spread a message of hope. Follow your heart. Don’t follow what you’ve been told you’re supposed to do.

I think the idea of art kills creativity.

I disagree with everything I used to say.

You’re just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do anyway. You’ve got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It’s all down to you, mate.

When you’re in hell, you forget how great you really are because you’re suffering and you forget the great things you’ve done.

It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.

We are always getting ready to live but never living.

Sometimes I’ll jot a clever turn of phrase down. Sometimes I’ll just remember it.

Prison was the best thing that ever happened to me.

I believe that one key to success is to accept truth, no matter how it’s spoken.

I am a dangerous man when turned loose with a typewriter.

It’s an offseason. These days are valuable for everybody.

I brought myself down. I impeached myself by resigning.

Any experience that touches you, in any particular way, is good. It can be a horrible experience.

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