To some extent I happily don’t know what I’m doing. I feel that it’s an artist’s responsibility to trust that.

My passion is bringing storylines around and constructing a full body of work rather than just a 16-bar verse.

Getting a great idea with song writing is a lot like love. You don’t know why this one is different, but it is. You don’t know why this one is better, but it is. It sticks in your head, and you can’t stop thinking about it.

Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, ‚But how can it be like that?‘ because you will get ‚down the drain,‘ into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.

I think a number of the leaders are, whether you like it or not, in the hip-hop generation. And when they understand enough, they’ll do wonders. I count on them.

To teach how to live without certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can do for those who study it.

Begin noticing and being careful about keeping your imagination free of thoughts that you do not wish to materialize. Instead, initiate a practice of filling your creative thoughts to overflow with ideas and wishes that you fully intend to manifest. Honor your imaginings regardless of others seeing them as crazy or impossible.

Even if you have nothing to write, write and say so.

Be the chief but never the lord.

Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right, than to be responsible and wrong.

The time has come for us to draw the line. The time has come for the responsible leaders of both political parties to take a stand against overgrown Government and for the American taxpayer.

When anyone has the power to destroy the whole human race in a matter of hours, it becomes a moral issue. The church must speak out.

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

Inspiration is hard to come by. You have to take it where you find it.

Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the Divine.

Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling.

We want to answer this classical question, who am I? So I think that most of our works are for art, or whatever we do, including science or religion, tried to answer that question.

There is nothing we like to communicate to others as much as the seal of secrecy together with what lies under it.

Too many Christians live their lives like slaves – to the devil – because they believe his lies more than they trust God.

I never look at my watch when I’m sketching!

For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together. Our friends seldom profit us but they make us feel safe. Marriage is a scheme to accomplish exactly that same end.

In my case Pilgrim’s Progress consisted in my having to climb down a thousand ladders until I could reach out my hand to the little clod of earth that I am.

I think, generally, I just cannot really envision life without writing and producing records and singing.

Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil, and let us see what we are made of.

We did not choose to be the guardians of the gate, but there is no one else.

Do your duty and a little more and the future will take care of itself.

So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.

Everybody always laughs because I feel so much more comfortable with, like, a giant paper bag on my whole body and paint on my face. Sometimes I try really hard to take it all off. But inevitably what’s underneath is still not a straight edge. And I don’t think it ever will be.

I can tell you this: If I’m ever in a position to call the shots, I’m not going to rush to send somebody else’s kids into a war.

I ain’t never far away from a pencil and paper or a tape recorder.

Often, I can scarcely hear any one speaking to me; the tones yes, but not the actual words; yet as soon as any one shouts, it is unbearable. What will come of all this, heaven only knows!

When everything works best, it’s not because you chose writing but because writing chose you. It’s when you’re mad with it, it’s when it’s stuffed in your ears, your nostrils, under your fingernails. It’s when there’s no hope but that.

‚Recreative‘ is a word that I invented because in urban culture, with colloquialism, we invent so many slangs. I don’t like the way that ‚recreational‘ sounds – I don’t like to say I do a lot of ‚recreational‘ reading. I like to say that I read ‚recreatively.‘ I do a lot of ‚recreative‘ reading.

No art can be noble which is incapable of expressing thought, and no art is capable of expressing thought which does not change.

I alone of English writers have consciously set myself to make music out of what I may call the sound of sense.

Trust not yourself, but your defects to know, make use of every friend and every foe.

You ask me if I keep a notebook to record my great ideas. I’ve only ever had one.

Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion.

Writing is such a strange, utterly mysterious process. First, there was nothing; then, suddenly, there was something. I don’t know where thoughts are born. Where the hell does it come from? I don’t know. I really don’t know.

No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time a steady eye.

Alas, after a certain age every man is responsible for his face.

A leader who doesn’t hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader.

It is my responsibility that I must make demonstrative efforts to reach out to every citizen of the country.

I don’t think there’s such a thing as autobiographical fiction. If I say it happened, it happened, even if only in my mind.

I often get ideas for songs on the tour bus at odd times. Like at 6am when no one is around, I’d just write.

I understood that with the swipe of my pen as a prosecutor, I would have the decision in my pen to make a decision about someone’s life.

One of my big goals as a human being is to continue to write what’s really happening to me, even if it’s a tough pill to swallow for people around me… I do fear that if I ever were to have someone in my life who mattered, I would second-guess every one of my lyrics.

I think it all comes back to being very selfish as an artist. I mean, I really do just write and record what interests me and I do approach the stage shows in much the same way.

The ego is only an illusion, but a very influential one. Letting the ego-illusion become your identity can prevent you from knowing your true self. Ego, the false idea of believing that you are what you have or what you do, is a backwards way of assessing and living life.

I hardly ever go into the studio with a work complete in my head. It emerges from communal activity.

You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say.

I used to wonder if it was God’s plan that I should be alone for so much of my life. But I found peace. I found happiness within people and the world.

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.

Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors.

When art dresses in worn-out material it is most easily recognized as art.

The only really committed artist is he who, without refusing to take part in the combat, at least refuses to join the regular armies and remains a freelance.

When we trust God more than our feelings, it confuses the devil. I mean, when he throws you his best shot and he can’t budge you from believing God, he won’t know what to do with you anymore.

I’ve never been a boyfriend kind of girl.

I love inventing names, but I also collect unusual names, so that I can look through my notebook and choose one that suits a new character.

People wanted me to do a CD-ROM of ‚Hitchhiker’s,‘ and I thought, ‚No, no.‘ I didn’t want to just sort of reverse-engineer yet another thing from a book I’d already written. I think that the digital media are interesting enough in their own right to be worth originating something in.

How simple a thing it seems to me that to know ourselves as we are, we must know our mothers names.