There were people who incorporated melody before me, but I would deem myself the first person to successfully rap and sing.

When I did have some success, it further emboldens you to be like, ‚No, I’m just going to write what I feel I should write.‘

I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success… such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.

There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something we’d all love one another.

When I was in high school, there were these British blues-rock-type bands with really good guitar players that would jam on one song for half an hour. And as much as I was amazed by some of those guitar players, seeing them prompted me to make a note that that’s not something I could do.

If a man can… make a better mousetrap, the world will make a beaten path to his door.

A fortunate author can write maybe twelve novels in his lifetime.

I like the idea of working in different genres and transcending genres and hopefully finding success, and ultimately make movies people like.

I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies.

Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman.

Music belongs to the people. To no one else. To no one else.

Where I come from it was really unheard of to be at a party and someone says, ‚What kind of music do you make?‘, and you say, ‚Pop music.‘ You may as well have ‚I’m not cool‘ stamped on your forehead.

Fiction is such a world of freedom, it’s wonderful. If you want someone to fly, they can fly.

It is a rare mind indeed that can render the hitherto non-existent blindingly obvious. The cry ‚I could have thought of that‘ is a very popular and misleading one, for the fact is that they didn’t, and a very significant and revealing fact it is too.

Lyrics are the only thing to do with music that haven’t been made easier technically.

If I weren’t performing, I’d be a beauty editor or a therapist. I love creativity, but I also love to help others. My mother was a hairstylist, and they listen to everyone’s problems – like a beauty therapist!

I began singing in dive bars and really small clubs. I dragged my piano down the stairs, and I went down the street with my keyboard, and I would go to every different dive bar that I could get to agree to let me play. I’d call and pretend I was Lady Gaga’s manager.

Mickey Mouse popped out of my mind onto a drawing pad 20 years ago on a train ride from Manhattan to Hollywood at a time when business fortunes of my brother Roy and myself were at lowest ebb and disaster seemed right around the corner.

There’s something missing in the music industry today… and it’s music. Songs you hear don’t last, it’s just product fed to you by the industry.

I just love Bowie. I think he’s the ultimate inventor.

When I listen to music these days, and I hear Pro Tools and drums that sound like a machine – it kinda sucks the life out of music.

Writing has always had that tactile quality for me. It’s a physical experience.

But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

A writer of fiction is really… a congenital liar who invents from his own knowledge or that of other men.

A sense of the universe, a sense of the all, the nostalgia which seizes us when confronted by nature, beauty, music – these seem to be an expectation and awareness of a Great Presence.

Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.

I only type every third night. I have no plan. My mind is a blank. I sit down. The typewriter gives me things I don’t even know I’m working on. It’s a free lunch. A free dinner. I don’t know how long it is going to continue, but so far there is nothing easier than writing.

My dad was into the 1950s doo-wop era. If you look at those groups, or at James Brown, Jackie Wilson and the Temptations in the 1960s, you’ll see you had to be sharp onstage.

In business, success often depends upon the relative age of your ideas.

I would drive to gigs in my tiny little Fiat. I would shoot up and down the M1 to play at various places.

How to play music may be known. At the commencement of the piece, all the parts should sound together. As it proceeds, they should be in harmony while severally distinct and flowing without break, and thus on to the conclusion.

People want to know why I do this, why I write such gross stuff. I like to tell them I have the heart of a small boy… and I keep it in a jar on my desk.

I really like hip-hop and rap; that’s my main influence. I really wanna be more of a hip-hop artist.

Take advantage of the years of pioneering efforts. You might find this boring, as the young want to rush head on, as it were.

My whole life and my whole career, even through my music, I tell people: let’s unify; let’s show more love.

Everybody born comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. We come from the Creator with creativity. I think that each one of us is born with creativity.

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.

The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.

Flying cars are not a very efficient way to move things from one point to another.

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.

At 57, to have a No. 1 album, I wasn’t expecting it.

In memory everything seems to happen to music.

It’s always fun to talk about jazz.

I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.

I do think there is a lot of potential if you have a compelling product and people are willing to pay a premium for that. I think that is what Apple has shown. You can buy a much cheaper cell phone or laptop, but Apple’s product is so much better than the alternative, and people are willing to pay that premium.

I always had music growing up, but music was also like a journal. It was like my personal diary or personal journal. A lot of the things I couldn’t express to an individual, I would express them in my music.

You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.

It’s nice, I think, when people use your music for things you didn’t think of.

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

Here’s the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don’t find it anywhere else.

I don’t know anything about music. In my line you don’t have to.

I don’t think that you can invent on behalf of customers unless you’re willing to think long-term, because a lot of invention doesn’t work. If you’re going to invent, it means you’re going to experiment, and if you’re going to experiment, you’re going to fail, and if you’re going to fail, you have to think long term.

I think the idea of art kills creativity.

‚House of Balloons‘ was special because I had no deadlines, and nobody knew me, so there were no expectations. Spent a year making it perfect. Every song had at least, like, 7 different versions to them before picking the right one.

Basically, I live to do gigs.

I think it’s really cool when artists have song titles or album names that are a really conversational sentence.

I used to like to set different film clips to classical music, not even my own songs, but make little movies.

It’s all make believe, isn’t it?

I don’t listen to the radio very much, but that could be because I don’t have a car.

You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems and suffer and understand, for all that is life.

There ought to be an artistic depot where the artist need only hand in his artwork in order to receive what he asks for. As things are, one must be half a business man, and how can one understand – good heavens! – that’s what I really call troublesome.