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?

An artist needn’t be a clergyman or a churchwarden, but he certainly must have a warm heart for his fellow men.

U2’s best work has always been when we didn’t know what we’re doing.

Genius… means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.

People think you have to go through something to write about it, and you absolutely do not. You can write about, like, a shoe. It’s a story.

I believe that the greatest gift you can give your family and the world is a healthy you.

I’ve arrived at the place if I’m not taking a career risk, I’m not happy. If I’m scared, then I know I’m being challenged.

Although I write screenplays, I don’t think I’m a very good writer.

Marriage is the most wonderful thing ever.

‚Happiness‘ is a pointless goal.

The last people with any ideas are young people.

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

I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.

When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, ‚Why god? Why me?‘ and the thundering voice of God answered, ‚There’s just something about you that pisses me off.‘

At times in my life the only place I have been happy is when I am on stage.

A lot of times, people make other people responsible for their joy: ‚You’re not making me happy, you’re not doing this, you’re not doing that.‘

Eternal principles that govern happiness apply equally to all.

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.

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.

I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream.

‚Kiss Land‘ wasn’t about what people wanted to hear on the radio. It was the state of mind I was in – introverted, like David Cronenberg’s ‚Naked Lunch.‘ You didn’t know if you were hearing a chorus or a verse. It was just my thoughts.

Art is the proper task of life.

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

With all due respect, the Mona Lisa is overrated.

The smart thing in the art world is to have one good idea and never have another.

I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.

My friends ask me if I want more kids, and I always say yes, I want more; it’s the best thing you can have in your life.

Even if you have nothing to write, write and say so.

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.

When I write, I write about my surroundings. Sometimes it’s light, and sometimes it gets very dark.

I’ve always been very happy. I’ve always been easy going and I’ve always been very encouraging; it’s just my personality.

When I found somebody who I fell in love with, it made me feel different than I felt the rest of the day. It was electrifying. That’s what inspired the ‚Off to the Races‘ melodies. That’s one of the times when you’re feeling electrified by someone else and they make you happy to be alive.

Suffering by nature or chance never seems so painful as suffering inflicted on us by the arbitrary will of another.

Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works.

One thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.

You make a movie, and if somebody reads something into it, then great, more power to him.

Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.

We are not going to be satisfied by politicians saying ‚we support you‘ and then walking away. We won’t be satisfied until they meet our demands and act. That’s why simply taking a selfie or posting support on Twitter isn’t enough. That’s why we have to keep striking.

There’s no happier person than a truly thankful, content person.

A laugh, to be joyous, must flow from a joyous heart, for without kindness, there can be no true joy.

You can draw inspiration from anything. If you’re a good storyteller, you can take a dirty look somebody gives you, or if a guy you used to have flirtations with starts dating a new girl, or somebody you’re casually talking to says something that makes you so mad – you can create an entire scenario around that.

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible.

In the 1960s when the recording studio suddenly really took off as a tool, it was the kids from art school who knew how to use it, not the kids from music school. Music students were all stuck in the notion of music as performance, ephemeral. Whereas for art students, music as painting? They knew how to do that.

I don’t care if people think I am an overactor, as long as they enjoy what I do. People who think that would call Van Gogh an overpainter.

There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.

Man becomes his most creative during war.

Every bit of me is devoted to love and art. And I aspire to try to be a teacher to my young fans who feel just like I felt when I was younger. I just felt like a freak. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m trying to liberate them, I want to free them of their fears and make them feel that they can make their own space in the world.

If you’re gonna make connections which are innovative… you have to not have the same bag of experiences as everyone else does.

Truly fertile Music, the only kind that will move us, that we shall truly appreciate, will be a Music conducive to Dream, which banishes all reason and analysis. One must not wish first to understand and then to feel. Art does not tolerate Reason.

Good leaders must communicate vision clearly, creatively, and continually. However, the vision doesn’t come alive until the leader models it.

Even when a person has all of life’s comforts – good food, good shelter, a companion – he or she can still become unhappy when encountering a tragic situation.

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.

The problem with writing a book in verse is, to be successful, it has to sound like you knocked it off on a rainy Friday afternoon. It has to sound easy. When you can do it, it helps tremendously because it’s a thing that forces kids to read on. You have this unconsummated feeling if you stop.

When you revolutionize education, you’re taking the very mechanism of how people be smarter and do new things, and you’re priming the pump for so many incredible things.

Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.

Some people focus more on sonics. Some people focus more on story. I focus on both sonics and story, but music sometimes, just music itself, can turn into more of a maths problem. I guess everything in life is a math problem, but it can be more about an empirical route to getting the symmetry that you want, and this vibe, sonically.

I would get out of school and go straight to my computer to create beats.

In writing, I apply my feminine side and respect the mystery involved in creation.

Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.

I respect Drake not only as a creative person but as a business mind as well. I think Drake’s important.