The mind of the painter must resemble a mirror, which always takes the colour of the object it reflects and is completely occupied by the images of as many objects as are in front of it.

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

Looking back on the production of ‚Nevermind,‘ I’m embarrassed by it now. It’s closer to a Motley Crue record than it is a punk rock record.

Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman, but believing what he read made him mad.

When I went back to England after a year away, the country seemed stuck, dozing in a fairy tale, stifled by the weight of tradition.

And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see – or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read.

See that the imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man.

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

We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.

A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.

I second-guess and overthink and rethink every single thing that I do.

You can write a song about being in love with someone, but you don’t have to be in love with anyone.

Art! Who comprehends her? With whom can one consult concerning this great goddess?

A reader can never tell if it’s a real thimble or an imaginary thimble, because by the time you’re reading it, they’re the same. It’s a thimble. It’s in the book.

Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.

Many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased.

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.

It is a common saying, and in everybody’s mouth, that life is but a sojourn.

There was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.

Men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work least, for their minds are occupied with their ideas and the perfection of their conceptions, to which they afterwards give form.

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

In my work, as a writer, I only photograph, in words, what I see.

You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

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

You can’t always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream.

The only things one can admire at length are those one admires without knowing why.

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.

You don’t have to be a renowned artist like Q-Tip to try your hand at poetry. You don’t need any special equipment – that’s the beauty of it.

For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled.

It is good taste, and good taste alone, that possesses the power to sterilize and is always the first handicap to any creative functioning.

Arrange whatever pieces come your way.

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.

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

I do some kind of work, whether writing or painting or recording, on a daily basis. And it’s so essential that when I’m involved in the actual process, my so-called ‚real life‘ becomes almost incidental, which becomes worrying.

I remember when I first came to Washington. For the first six months you wonder how the hell you ever got here. For the next six months you wonder how the hell the rest of them ever got here.

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

Darn the wheel of the world! Why must it continually turn over? Where is the reverse gear?

What we live by we die by.

I know a lot of artists say this, but it’s hard to put myself in a box. I just write songs that I strongly believe in and that are coming form a special place. There’s no tricks.

Stories surge up out of nowhere, and if they feel compelling, you follow them. You let them unfold inside you and see where they are going to lead.

Our necessities never equal our wants.

As our case is new, we must think and act anew.

America is a nation that conceives many odd inventions for getting somewhere but it can think of nothing to do once it gets there.

If you hear a voice within you say ‚you cannot paint,‘ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.

Masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice.

Cowardice… is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend functioning of the imagination.

As a musician and a songwriter, it is an act of the ego to believe that other people might be interested in your point of view. But it is usually an empathetic nature that gets you going in the first place.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

Every man is a creative cause of what happens, a primum mobile with an original movement.

Everything is my demon muse. I have a muse which whispers in my ear and says, ‚Do this, do that,‘ but it’s my demon who provokes me.

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

A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true, for if the things be false, the apprehension of them is not understanding.

What is this world that is hastening me toward I know not what, viewing me with contempt?

Yesterday’s just a memory, tomorrow is never what it’s supposed to be.

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

Writing is my love. If you love something, you find a lot of time. I write for two hours a day, usually starting at midnight; at times, I start at 11.

I cannot with any real integrity perform songs I’ve done for 25 years. I don’t need the money. What I need is to feel that I am not letting myself down as an artist and that I still have something to contribute.

To create a new standard, it takes something that’s not just a little bit different; it takes something that’s really new and really captures people’s imagination, and the Macintosh, of all the machines I’ve ever seen, is the only one that meets that standard.

For me, genres are a way for people to easily categorize music. But it doesn’t have to define you. It doesn’t have to limit you.

I have so many designs and video ideas and lyrics in my head, so I always try to be productive.

It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.