The last people with any ideas are young people.

If I’m inspired to make a certain kind of song, I’m going to make that kind of song, no matter if it’s what they know me as or think I am.

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.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

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.

Yet, it is true, poetry is delicious; the best prose is that which is most full of poetry.

Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

What is a television apparatus to man, who has only to shut his eyes to see the most inaccessible regions of the seen and the never seen, who has only to imagine in order to pierce through walls and cause all the planetary Baghdads of his dreams to rise from the dust.

Wherever you write is supposed to be a little bit of a refuge, a place where you can get away from the world. The more closed in you are, the more you’re forced back on your own imagination.

The good old days, when each idea had an owner, are gone forever.

The idea that you encourage companies to take their innovative thinkers and think about the most needy – even beyond the market opportunities – that’s something that appropriately ought to be done.

There is a great discovery still to be made in literature, that of paying literary men by the quantity they do not write.

I’ve never written a song in my life. It’s all a big hoax.

I’ve written all my songs on every single one of my records, and that’s what’s been fun about looking back.

If I had a stock of fabulous sounds I would just always use them. I wouldn’t bother to find new ones.

We, we – as I say, we go in and shake up other industries and I think, you know, we do it differently and I think that industries are not quite the same as a result of Virgin attacking the market.

I can say I’d honestly rather be happy than have 30 to 40 songs that I’ve written about these thrilling, exciting, horrible, unhappy times.

I just make the pictures and where they fall is where they fall. If somebody likes them, that’s always nice. And if they don’t like them, then too bad.

A work of art that contains theories is like an object on which the price tag has been left.

I’ll always stay connected with Apple. I hope that throughout my life I’ll sort of have the thread of my life and the thread of Apple weave in and out of each other, like a tapestry. There may be a few years when I’m not there, but I’ll always come back.

Everybody thinks making films back to back is a big deal but they did it all the time in the old days.

Humor has bailed me out of more tight situations than I can think of. If you go with your instincts and keep your humor, creativity follows. With luck, success comes, too.

Silicon Valley has some of the smartest engineers and technology business people in the world.

People may think I’m trying something new by telling stories, but they’re just jokes connected to give the illusion of stories. But really, I just continue using my imagination and creating. That’s what I do.

Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one.

Everything that’s created comes out of silence. Your thoughts emerge from the nothingness of silence. Your words come out of this void. Your very essence emerged from emptiness. All creativity requires some stillness.

A teacher should have a creative mind.

Every artist wants something different out the game.

I seem to turn out stories that violate the discipline of the short story form and don’t obey the rules of progression for novels. I don’t think about a particular form: I think more about fiction, let’s say a chunk of fiction.

All of my writing is God-given.

I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.

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.

Harold, like the rest of us, had many impressions which saved him the trouble of distinct ideas.

‚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.‘

The world moves, and ideas that were once good are not always good.

I am excited to partner with Under Armour to bring game-changing sleepwear, with the same bioceramics technology I use, to athletes all around the world.

I’ve always felt that what I have going for me is not my imagination, because everyone has an imagination. What I have is a relentlessly controlled imagination. What looks like wild invention is actually quite carefully calculated.

I’m not interested in people positioning me next to other artists.

All of these young people have some kind of potential in them. And if we don’t invest in them as a nation, regardless of where they come from or what color they are, if we don’t invest in them, we lose.

I wanted to write when I was young, but people said it was impossible. Then my parents locked me in a mental institution – they said I was crazy and would never make a living from writing.

I’m a Silicon Valley guy. I just think people from Silicon Valley can do anything.

We believe that if men have the talent to invent new machines that put men out of work, they have the talent to put those men back to work.

Fashion has become so whatever. I don’t think there are any stones left to unturn.

In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm… in the real world all rests on perseverance.

If you can’t tolerate critics, don’t do anything new or interesting.

I used to – my earliest memory of waking up with a melody in my head was, you know, 8, 9, 10. I’ve always heard kind of melodies in my head.

Man becomes his most creative during war.

I tell my fellow reggaetoneros, keep giving it your all and bring more creativity.

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.

I like the app where you can make your own memes. I make memes all the time and send them to my friends.

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.

It is better to create than to learn! Creating is the essence of life.

I’m born with a pencil in my hand. I did lots of sketching.

I really do encourage other manufacturers to bring electric cars to market. It’s a good thing, and they need to bring it to market and keep iterating and improving and make better and better electric cars, and that’s what going to result in humanity achieving a sustainable transport future. I wish it was growing faster than it is.

I guess I’m just inspired to tell stories.

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

Don’t be a writer; it’s a terrible way to live your life. There’s nothing to be gained from it but poverty and obscurity and solitude. So if you have a taste for all those things, which means that you really are burning to do it, then go ahead and do it. But don’t expect anything from anybody.

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

In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats – maybe it’s imperative that we encounter the defeats – but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. Human beings are more alike than unalike.

I wanted to write.

It’s kind of like a challenge to myself to be able to hear somebody else’s hook and kind of interpret the words. Because my own hooks, I already know what I mean when I write them.