There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.

Where love is, there God is also.

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.

Genius is patience.

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!

We must use time creatively.

In 1995, I was diagnosed with cancer, and I had to practice what I preached. I had always said to ‚believe in God‘ and ‚don’t give up‘ to little kids who had been diagnosed with cancer. I then thought if I can’t call on that same God and same strength that I told people about, I would be a liar and a phony.

I dwell in possibility.

Prince Charles is definitely my hero; he uses his position to do only good in this world.

Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.

All art is quite useless.

The way I approach this thing, when I started to get my head screwed on straight and really trying to make something of myself as an artist, when I was 19 or 20, it became more about function for me. Like, what is this song doing to you? What is the function of this type of artform? What is it doing?

Waste brings woe, and sorrow hates despair.

The whole ‚enigmatic artist‘ thing, I just ran with it.

Frankly, I mean, sometimes the interpretations I’ve seen on some of the songs that I’ve written are a lot more interesting than the input that I put in.

From wonder into wonder existence opens.

In all seriousness, people think that it’s the ideas that are important. Well, everyone has ideas, all the time. I tend to write mine down and remember them, but at some point you have to apply the bum to the seat and knock out about sixty five thousand words – that’s how long a novel is.

You know those things that you throw the twigs into and it spits them out? That’s what I do. The branches are like life, and I throw them into my head and some of it comes out as humor.

In art, at a certain level, there is no ‚better than.‘ It’s just about trying to operate for yourself on the most supreme level, artistically, that you can and hoping that people get it. Trusting that, just because of the way people are built and how interconnected we are, greatness will translate and symmetry will be recognised.

Alfred Hitchcock once told me, when I was analyzing a lot of things about his pictures, ‚Clint, you must remember, it’s only a movie.‘

On Sundays when I speak, I hopefully give somebody something that they can use the next day at work or at home.

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.

First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.

Some people focus more on sonics. Some people focus more on story. I focus on both sonics and story, but music sometimes, just music itself, can turn into more of a maths problem. I guess everything in life is a math problem, but it can be more about an empirical route to getting the symmetry that you want, and this vibe, sonically.

Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They’re just braver five minutes longer.

Well, if Fortune be a woman, she’s a good wench for this gear.

Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.

Innovation has nothing to do with how many R & D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R & D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.

A man’s got to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book.

The successful men I admired all built their bodies.

A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.

Always do whatever’s next.

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.

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.

I hate the idea of genres.

One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor.

Stand-up is hard. Or to keep it at a certain level is hard: I have no writers but me.

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?

Any good piece of material like Shakespeare ought to be open to reinterpretation.

I guess I’m just inspired to tell stories.

Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.

Forces that you might think are utterly unrelated to creativity can have a big impact. Technology, obviously, but environment, too. Even financial structures can affect the actual content of a song. The making of music is profoundly affected by the market.

I have my permanent muses and my muses of the moment.

The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.

Whoever named it necking was a poor judge of anatomy.

We are all geniuses up to the age of ten.

Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them.

Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.

If you really want to know what Middle-earth is based on, it’s my wonder and delight in the earth as it is, particularly the natural earth.

You just don’t wake up one day and decide that you need to write songs.

Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die.

I do love being in my studio. Especially at night.

Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning.

Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.

I always dreamt of holding the bat and winning games for India. That was my inspiration to take up cricket.

One of the interesting things about having little musical knowledge is that you generate surprising results sometimes; you move to places you wouldn’t if you knew better.

I want to be like Bruce Springsteen or something, making songs that are relevant.

Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.

Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm.

You might win some, you might lose some. But you go in, you challenge yourself, you become a better man, a better individual, a better fighter.