The artist in me cries out for design.

The man who has no imagination has no wings.

I think frugality drives innovation, just like other constraints do. One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out.

Those who have been writing literature have not been writing life.

Everything in the world exists to end up in a book.

You do things when the opportunities come along. I’ve had periods in my life when I’ve had a bundle of ideas come along, and I’ve had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I’ll do something. If not, I won’t do a damn thing.

Art is not a thing; it is a way.

I write songs that are like diary entries. I have to do it in order to feel sane.

In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing.

My style influences my music and everything around me.

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’m always interested in what you can do with technology that people haven’t thought of doing yet.

I’m fascinated by musicians who don’t completely understand their territory; that’s when you do your best work.

In many ways, I’ve been writing personal stories all my life.

I do probably 60 concerts a year in the States. And I go out to clubs in the week. I’m doing new stuff all the time.

To do a dull thing with style-now that’s what I call art.

The assumption is that your personal life has to be a mess to create, but how much chaos can you allow in before it takes over?

A man is more frank and sincere with his emotions than a woman. We girls, I’m afraid, have a tendency to hide our feelings.

Imagination rules the world.

Originality is really important.

I try to do the fancy things out there by going with both hands, making crossover moves, and having a certain creativity and flair to my game.

My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.

You do projects with the hope they will be big and hope they will go beyond what you imagine.

Few people have the imagination for reality.

I enjoy working with complicated equipment. A lot of my things started just with a rhythm box, but I feed it through so many things that what comes out sounds very complex and rich.

People like Frank Zappa and Bryan Ferry knew we could pick and choose from the history of music, stick things together looking for friction and energy. They were more like playwrights; they invented characters and wrote a life around them.

We must use time creatively.

Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.

A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

Because, you know, resilience – if you think of it in terms of the Gold Rush, then you’d be pretty depressed right now because the last nugget of gold would be gone. But the good thing is, with innovation, there isn’t a last nugget. Every new thing creates two new questions and two new opportunities.

It is a rare mind indeed that can render the hitherto non-existent blindingly obvious. The cry ‚I could have thought of that‘ is a very popular and misleading one, for the fact is that they didn’t, and a very significant and revealing fact it is too.

The earliest paintings I loved were always the most non-referential paintings you can imagine, by painters such as Mondrian. I was thrilled by them because they didn’t refer to anything else. They stood alone, and they were just charged magic objects that did not get their strength from being connected to anything else.

If you only believe that you’re an artist when you have a big advance in your pocket and a single coming out, I would say that’s quite soulless. You have to have a sense of your own greatness and your own ability from a very deep place inside you. I am the one with the litmus test in my hands of what people need to hear next.

Ideas can be life-changing. Sometimes all you need to open the door is just one more good idea.

It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection.

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

The best football is always about expression of emotion. Always.

I never look at my watch when I’m sketching!

I’ve been asking myself: ‚Why put together these things – CDs, albums?‘ The answer I came up with is, well, sometimes it’s artistically viable. It’s not just a random collection of songs. Sometimes the songs have a common thread, even if it’s not obvious or even conscious on the artists‘ part.

The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

There’s poetry in being the band that can sell out Wembley but also makes a record in a garage. I don’t like doing what people expect me to do.

You don’t have to be scared of me, because I am loyal. Why are people so scared of creative ideas and so scared of truth? All I want to do is do good.

It is in this power of saying everything, and yet saying nothing too plainly, that the perfection of art consists.

The book is not really the container for the book. The book itself is the narrative. It’s the thing that people create.

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.

PowerPoint may not be of any use for you in a presentation, but it may liberate you in another way, an artistic way. Who knows.

I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.

No good is ever done to society by the pictorial representation of its diseases.

I mean, what would I be doing if I couldn’t write? But that fortunately hasn’t proved to be the case and I can read any day. I still read a lot, and I can write any day, but much more slowly and fewer words.

One has to secrete a jelly in which to slip quotations down people’s throats – and one always secretes too much jelly.

I didn’t die young. So I am very lucky. There are other artists and people that didn’t survive certain things… people can imagine that I did the most dangerous, and I did the worst… for many reasons, I shouldn’t be here.

Genius, when young, is divine.

Science fiction is any idea that occurs in the head and doesn’t exist yet, but soon will, and will change everything for everybody, and nothing will ever be the same again. As soon as you have an idea that changes some small part of the world you are writing science fiction. It is always the art of the possible, never the impossible.

Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.

It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances.

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

Whenever I make music, it reflects where I’m at mentally.

Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest.

Having unlimited choices can paralyze you creatively.

It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality is more important than the feeling for pictures.