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.

Little by little, not by making big promises, I need to be calmer, read more, spend more time with my loved ones, and be more mindful about nature and environment.

It would be a terrific innovation if you could get your mind to stretch a little further than the next wisecrack.

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

From things that have happened and from things as they exist and from all things that you know and all those you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive, and you make it alive, and if you make it well enough, you give it immortality.

Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.

When I was making ‚Star Wars,‘ I wasn’t restrained by any kind of science. I simply said, ‚I’m going to create a world that’s fun and interesting, makes sense, and seems to have a reality to it.‘

My sorrow, when she’s here with me, thinks these dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be; she loves the bare, the withered tree; she walks the sodden pasture lane.

I can express myself.

Working conditions for me have always been those of the monastic life: solitude and frugality. Except for frugality, they are contrary to my nature, so much so that work is a violence I do to myself.

Art is the proper task of life.

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.

The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art.

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.

Sincerity makes the very least person to be of more value than the most talented hypocrite.

You fail only if you stop writing.

The true artist is not proud: he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly how far he is from the goal, and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun.

Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‚I used everything you gave me‘.

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.

I think the reason my stories have been so successful is that I have a strong sense of metaphor.

The unnatural, that too is natural.

New ideas pass through three periods: 1) It can’t be done. 2) It probably can be done, but it’s not worth doing. 3) I knew it was a good idea all along!

I had no talent for science. What was infinitely worse: all my fraternity brothers were engineers.

As an entrepreneur, as an investor, I’m trying to be as educated as I can to where the progression of technological capability is going and what it does to these different categories that, me as an artist and an influencer, I can get involved and bring value.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.

I want to make something that is breathtaking. Of course, you can’t make something that is always breathtaking, or you would never be able to breathe. You would collapse.

You’d be waiting 30 or 40 years for me to build a table. I have more than two left hands.

During my first years in the Sierra, I was ever calling on everybody within reach to admire them, but I found no one half warm enough until Emerson came. I had read his essays, and felt sure that of all men he would best interpret the sayings of these noble mountains and trees. Nor was my faith weakened when I met him in Yosemite.

The mark of all good art is not that the thing done is done exactly or finely, for machinery may do as much, but that it is worked out with the head and the workman’s heart.

If you’re living in your time, you cannot help but to write about the things that are important.

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

An architect should live as little in cities as a painter. Send him to our hills, and let him study there what nature understands by a buttress, and what by a dome.

It was morning; through the high window I saw the pure, bright blue of the sky as it hovered cheerfully over the long roofs of the neighboring houses. It too seemed full of joy, as if it had special plans, and had put on its finest clothes for the occasion.

As an artist, as a brand, as a rapper, as a musician, you know you got a window and a lot of people, even an athlete; they don’t have no exit strategy. It’s just living in the false reality that it’s going to be like this forever.

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

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

There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.

I think you get most of the most interesting work done in fields where people don’t think they’re doing art but are merely practicing a craft and working as good craftsmen. Being literate as a writer is good craft, is knowing your job, is knowing how to use your tools properly and not to damage the tools as you use them.

The worst evil of disregard for some law is that it destroys respect for all law.

The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure.

Necessity is the mistress and guide of nature. Necessity is the theme and inventress of nature, her curb and her eternal law.

You may be able to read Bernard Shaw’s plays, you may be able to quote Shakespeare or Voltaire or some new philosopher; but if you in yourself are not intelligent, if you are not creative, what is the point of this education?

Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you’re a human being, you feel, you suffer. You’re gay, you’re sick, you’re nervous or whatever.

Possession isn’t nine-tenths of the law. It’s nine-tenths of the problem.

I believe that every person is born with talent.

What springs from earth dissolves to earth again, and heaven-born things fly to their native seat.

I have a definite talent for convincing people to try something new. I am a good salesman. When I’m on form, I can sell anything.

They consider me to have sharp and penetrating vision because I see them through the mesh of a sieve.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

I’m crepuscular.

As the poet said, ‚Only God can make a tree,‘ probably because it’s so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.

Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the Divine.

Skill is the unified force of experience, intellect and passion in their operation.

I’m in this business to be creative – I’ll even diminish it and say to be a content provider.

I have to write 100 songs before you write the first good one.

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting.

I can see, and that is why I can be happy, in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden. I can see a God-made world, not a manmade world.

The best author will be the one who is ashamed to become a writer.

And you find as a writer there are certain spots on the planet where you write better than others, and I believe in that. And New Orleans is one of them.