creativity quotes

I’ve been asking myself: ‚Why put together these things – CDs, albums?‘ The answer I came up with is, well, sometimes it’s artistically viable. It’s not just a random collection of songs. Sometimes the songs have a common thread, even if it’s not obvious or even conscious on the artists‘ part.

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

I’ve never had writer’s block.

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

My songs are like my children – I expect them to support me when I’m old.

We all sort of do want incentives for creative people to still exist at a certain level. You know, maybe rock stars shouldn’t make as much; who knows? But you want as much creativity to take place in the future as took place in the past.

I think sometimes – not always – I write songs that are accessible.

Effective philanthropy requires a lot of time and creativity – the same kind of focus and skills that building a business requires.

I can get where some scientists would say comedians are crazy. What you have to understand: A lot of comedians are dealing with a dark passion. A lot of these are guys coming from a tumultuous life, including myself. Some people need outlets, a way to express yourself.

I write songs that are like diary entries. I have to do it in order to feel sane.

Music is a really great creative tool for me, for different roles.

I’m never gonna step away from stand-up. I can’t. That’s what got me where I am, and that’s also my muse. That’s how I stay level-headed. That’s what keeps me going.

Sometimes I think that there’s a fine line between impressionistic and messy.

Whatever is on the page is what I’m married to. I’m very prepared. I’m a thespian. I don’t like to improv. I don’t like to go off course ‚cause I think that’s where stuff happens. When you stick to the material ‚cause it’s written so well, that’s where the magic happens.

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.

Like a pianist runs her fingers over the keys, I’ll search my mind for what to say. Now, the poem may want you to write it. And then sometimes you see a situation and think, ‚I’d like to write about that.‘ Those are two different ways of being approached by a poem, or approaching a poem.

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

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

I think when people make a record with a goal in mind – like taking it to the next level or making them seem more mature – that gets in the way of writing great songs.

In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats – maybe it’s imperative that we encounter the defeats – but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. Human beings are more alike than unalike.

When you revolutionize education, you’re taking the very mechanism of how people be smarter and do new things, and you’re priming the pump for so many incredible things.

I have trouble imagining what I could do that’s beyond the practicality of what I can do.

In business or in life, don’t follow the wagon tracks too closely.

I’ve never been able to witness the birth of an idea. It seems as if one second, there’s nothing particularly going on, and the next second, something is there. It’s coming up out of my unconscious, up from places that I don’t even know where they are.

And if you’re horrible to me I’m going to write a song about you and you are not going to like it. That’s how I operate.

We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans – because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That’s why we paint, that’s why we dare to love someone – because we have the impulse to explain who we are.

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.

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

You can draw inspiration from anything. If you’re a good storyteller, you can take a dirty look somebody gives you, or if a guy you used to have flirtations with starts dating a new girl, or somebody you’re casually talking to says something that makes you so mad – you can create an entire scenario around that.

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.

I have to write 100 songs before you write the first good one.

I don’t think that you can be prescriptive about anything, I mean, life is too complicated. Maybe there are novels where the author has not in the least thought about it in terms of film, which can be turned into good films.

I’ve written all my songs on every single one of my records, and that’s what’s been fun about looking back.

My stories run up and bite me on the leg – I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.

I think people inspire me the most. If I meet a person who is incredibly complex, and all of a sudden, I start thinking in rhymes, that person could be a muse.

Every artist was first an amateur.

I’ve read a lot of really great characters in some really crappy stories, where I said, like, ‚Boy I could shine here, but the story sucks.‘ I don’t want to be part of that.

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.

O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.

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

I’ve tried different things through the years to get some play on mainstream. I’ll try to tailor-make it.

The human body has two ends on it: one to create with and one to sit on. Sometimes people get their ends reversed. When this happens they need a kick in the seat of the pants.

If an idea isn’t exciting, you shouldn’t do it.

I really, truly believe that writing comes out of the body; of course, the mind is working as well, but it’s a double thing and that doubleness is united. I mean, you can’t separate persona from psyche; you just can’t do it.

You can write a short story in two hours. Two hours a day, you have a novel in a year.

I’ve always written songs the same way. You learn different tricks – you learn craft, you learn structure, all that – as you go.

I write screenplays in the middle of the night.

I just kind of wake up with a new idea and new dreams every day, and I follow that dream, as they say.

I don’t control my writing – it controls me.

Science does not know its debt to imagination.

I love dresses, and I’ve definitely thought about designing them someday. I just want to make sure that I wait until the time is perfect and I can do it right.

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.

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.

I’d like to think you don’t stop being creative once you get happy. My ultimate goal is to end up being happy. Most of the time.

I never experiment with anything in my books. Experimentation means you don’t know what you’re doing.

America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres.

Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm.

Anything that encourages people to pick up an instrument and play, I’m fully behind.

I think the reason my stories have been so successful is that I have a strong sense of metaphor.

I mean, what would I be doing if I couldn’t write? But that fortunately hasn’t proved to be the case and I can read any day. I still read a lot, and I can write any day, but much more slowly and fewer words.