There are only 3 colors, 10 digits, and 7 notes; its what we do with them that’s important.

Security is, I would say, our top priority because for all the exciting things you will be able to do with computers – organizing your lives, staying in touch with people, being creative – if we don’t solve these security problems, then people will hold back.

I’m not a very creative person, you know? I’m not really an art person. I’m not a great reader or writer or artist or musician.

I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.

There is only one position for an artist anywhere; and that is upright.

Then, when I’m in these relationships with people who are also creative, or creative in their own way, what happens is the attraction is initially there and it’s all unicorns and rainbows. And then they hate me.

A song has to take on character, shape, body and influence people to an extent that they use it for their own devices. It must affect them not just as a song, but as a lifestyle.

I have been struck again and again by how important measurement is to improving the human condition.

I’m always reading the next book. Taking notes. Highlighting, researching, studying. It doesn’t stop.

Imagination is a poor matter when it has to part company with understanding.

My goal in music is to create nostalgic moments.

Good jokes are gems. A good idea is hard to come by. I couldn’t give them to someone else, even for money. It just wouldn’t seem right.

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.

An idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at all.

All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.

Like anything else that happens on its own, the act of writing is beyond currency. Money is great stuff to have, but when it comes to the act of creation, the best thing is not to think of money too much. It constipates the whole process.

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?

I don’t think of myself as an artist. I’m just a guy who can write.

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.

In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.

As a songwriter, you respect and appreciate the writings of other people, and I often get asked, are there songs out there I wish I’d written? Yes. There’s many of them!

He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.

Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.

I was lucky to be involved and get to contribute to something that was important, which is empowering people with software.

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.

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

There is no blue without yellow and without orange.

I love to watch videos, and I’ve always liked to film and take pictures. I have an eye for really weird things that nobody thinks about. I used to make little movies about myself and then edit them on iMovie.

The problem with writing a book in verse is, to be successful, it has to sound like you knocked it off on a rainy Friday afternoon. It has to sound easy. When you can do it, it helps tremendously because it’s a thing that forces kids to read on. You have this unconsummated feeling if you stop.

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.

Creative people don’t behave very well generally. If you’re looking for examples of good relationships in show business, you’re gonna be depressed real fast. I don’t have time for anything else right now but work and my daughter. She’s my first priority.

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.

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.

O, had I but followed the arts!

The human race is governed by its imagination.

I’ve written some great things. That’s a gift, but there’s consequences. Yeah, you get this great work, but you suffer. You really, really suffer.

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

There are as many worlds as there are kinds of days, and as an opal changes its colors and its fire to match the nature of a day, so do I.

All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.

Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.

I enjoy singing my songs in front of people. I enjoy being involved in making the artwork for albums and stupid stuff like that.

The Second Amendment is just as important as all the other Amendments.

I don’t invest in ideas because ideas are a dime a dozen. I could steal the idea pretty quickly.

Nutrition is so important. It can’t be stressed enough.

I’ve never had writer’s block.

That is how you get to be a writer, incidentally: you feel somehow marginal, somehow slightly off-balance all the time.

I wish myself to be a prop, if anything, for my songs. I want to be the vehicle for my songs. I would like to colour the material with as much visual expression as is necessary for that song.

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.

There’s not some idea I’m going to create a work that’s going to change everybody’s consciousness.

A man makes you feel important – makes you glad you are a woman.

You know, Nirvana used to start rehearsals with the three of us just jamming. For, like, a half an hour, just noise and freeform crap – and usually it was crap. But sometimes things would come from it, and some songs on Nevermind came from that, and ‚Heart Shaped Box‘ and stuff on ‚In Utero‘ just happened that way.

Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig. I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

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?

Many children make up, or begin to make up, imaginary languages. I have been at it since I could write.

An unimaginative person can neither be reverent or kind.

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 it’s fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tool we’ve ever created. They’re tools of communication, they’re tools of creativity, and they can be shaped by their user.

It’s all make believe, isn’t it?

Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.

I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the person grow to look like his portrait.