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

I kept writing not because I felt I was so good, but because I felt they were so bad, including Shakespeare, all those. The stilted formalism, like chewing cardboard.

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

While we look to the dramatist to give romance to realism, we ask of the actor to give realism to romance.

There is spontaneity to my work.

Oh, the difference between nearly right and exactly right.

Thomas Jefferson once said, ‚We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.‘ And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.

From the dust of the earth, from the common elementary fund, the Creator has made Homo sapiens. From the same material he has made every other creature, however noxious and insignificant to us. They are earth-born companions and our fellow mortals.

To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one.

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

In a budget, how important is art versus music versus athletics versus computer programming? At the end of the day, some of those trade-offs will be made politically.

Paintings have a life of their own that derives from the painter’s soul.

I’m still in love with what I do, with the idea of making things up, so hours when I write always feel like very blessed hours to me.

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

My goal in music is to create nostalgic moments.

I like George Carlin’s jokes. I like his humor. He’s one of my heroes, and I like what he did with talking about everyday things.

If there is a transmigration of souls then I am not yet on the bottom rung. My life is a hesitation before birth.

If you want to talk about something new, you have to make up a new kind of language.

When men and woman die, as poets sung, his heart’s the last part moves, her last, the tongue.

We’re all dreamers.

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.

Originality is a thing we constantly clamour for, and constantly quarrel with.

History shows that the majority of people that have done anything great have passed their youth in seclusion.

Before I do anything, I think, well what hasn’t been seen. Sometimes, that turns out to be something ghastly and not fit for society. And sometimes that inspiration becomes something that’s really worthwhile.

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

When you’re around me and really see that all I do is live and breathe for my work, it’s not strange, it’s just Gaga.

Even with cameras being very cheap, one thing that researchers noticed was that you look really bad in a videoconference image because the lighting is bad and you get shadows and things.

I read poetry to save time.

One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.

The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me.

And if you’re horrible to me I’m going to write a song about you and you are not going to like it. That’s how I operate.

I believe the right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this; was it done with enjoyment, was the carver happy while he was about it?

There are 309 million people out there that are trying to improve their lot in life. And we’ve got a system that allows them to do it.

The whole ‚enigmatic artist‘ thing, I just ran with it.

I used to take my short stories to girls‘ homes and read them to them. Can you imagine the reaction reading a short story to a girl instead of pawing her?

How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

I’m a pretty decent writer. It comes easy to me. I don’t agonize over sentences. I write like I talk. I try to make them good books.

I just have a thing in my brain that when I’m about to do something that’s genuine or authentic, I think of it in song form. I’ll be like, ‚Yo, this is a human emotion that no one talks about.‘

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.

Yes, there is a terrible moral in ‚Dorian Gray‘ – a moral which the prurient will not be able to find in it, but it will be revealed to all whose minds are healthy. Is this an artistic error? I fear it is. It is the only error in the book.

The poet, being an imitator like a painter or any other artist, must of necessity imitate one of three objects – things as they were or are, things as they are said or thought to be, or things as they ought to be. The vehicle of expression is language – either current terms or, it may be, rare words or metaphors.

We live in a culture that relishes tearing others down. It’s ultimately more fulfilling, though, to help people reach their goals. Instead of feeling jealous, remember: If God did it for them, He can do it for you.

I never called my work an ‚art‘. It’s part of show business, the business of building entertainment.

The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected.

Poetry has done enough when it charms, but prose must also convince.

Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment.

I’m inspired by people who keep on rolling, no matter their age.

Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence.

What is the Tao Te Ching? Five hundred years before the birth of Jesus, a God-realized being named Lao-tzu in ancient China dictated 81 verses which are regarded by many as the ultimate commentary on the nature of existence.

I take inspiration from everyone and everything. I’m inspired by current champions, former champions, true competitors, people dedicated to their dream, hard workers, dreamers, believers, achievers.

In the usual progress of things, the necessities of a nation in every stage of its existence will be found at least equal to its resources.

He ate and drank the precious Words, his Spirit grew robust; He knew no more that he was poor, nor that his frame was Dust.

I have a personal ambition to live my life honestly and honor the true love that I’ve had and also the people I’ve had around me. I want to stay hopeful, even though I get scared about why we’re even alive at all.

Imagine for yourself a character, a model personality, whose example you determine to follow, in private as well as in public.

I believe that economics is based on scarcity of markets. And it’s possible to monetize your art without compromising the integrity of it for commerce.

Aim for the highest.

Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.

My kind of composing is more like the work of a gardener. The gardener takes his seeds and scatters them, knowing what he is planting but not quite what will grow where and when – and he won’t necessarily be able to reproduce it again afterwards either.

There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period.

I’m wallowing in the whole idea of just being a guy out there with a band, with songs. It’s a real enjoyment.

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.