Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others.

I have Dalinian thought: the one thing the world will never have enough of is the outrageous.

I noticed words crudely spray-painted upon the wall, perhaps by a young Berliner: ‚This wall will fall. Beliefs become reality.‘ Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.

We are all hungry and thirsty for concrete images. Abstract art will have been good for one thing: to restore its exact virginity to figurative art.

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

If you check your ego at the door when it comes to comedy, you’ve got a pretty good shot at making a great movie that you can commit yourself to, you can jump off the proverbial cliff with, and have a great time, and the audiences respond to that.

I think that by staying true to myself and making music from my heart, the blessings come.

I’m terrified of therapy because I don’t want it to mess with my creativity.

It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection.

I have the space and liberty to create.

I sometimes think that the price of liberty is not so much eternal vigilance as eternal dirt.

I’m a painter in sound.

I write because writing is something that I have to do. And it doesn’t matter whether people like it or not. When I write, I feel the pressure and anxiety that come with taking an empty piece of paper and trying to fill it with something from your own consciousness.

Above all, this country is our own. Nobody has to get up in the morning and worry what his neighbors think of him. Being a Jew is no problem here.

A man is more frank and sincere with his emotions than a woman. We girls, I’m afraid, have a tendency to hide our feelings.

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.

Fiction is based on reality unless you’re a fairytale artist.

Freedom is a man’s natural power of doing what he pleases, so far as he is not prevented by force or law.

The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me.

I don’t know how to function without music. When I’m not making it, I’m listening to it. It gives me courage and takes care of my mind.

Everybody has a creative potential and from the moment you can express this creative potential, you can start changing the world.

You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

It is after all the greatest art to limit and isolate oneself.

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

But when I hear a great song, I can’t help but be inspired by it, regardless of whatever genre that song falls under.

You can’t do it unless you can imagine it.

It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting.

Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art.

Find a beautiful piece of art. If you fall in love with Van Gogh or Matisse or John Oliver Killens, or if you fall love with the music of Coltrane, the music of Aretha Franklin, or the music of Chopin – find some beautiful art and admire it, and realize that that was created by human beings just like you, no more human, no less.

I always had faith in my creative capacity.

Writing is the most fun you can have by yourself.

Until I began to learn to draw, I was never much interested in looking at art.

Every artist was first an amateur.

For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

There’s an effort to reclaim the unmentionable, the unsayable, the unspeakable, all those things come into being a composer, into writing music, into searching for notes and pieces of musical information that don’t exist.

Having unlimited choices can paralyze you creatively.

The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.

You can’t always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream.

I don’t have stylistic loyalty. That’s why people perceive me changing all the time. But there is a real continuity in my subject matter. As an artist of artifice, I do believe I have more integrity than any one of my contemporaries.

Poetry comes from the highest happiness or the deepest sorrow.

I used to consider the listener. But now I’m in a space where, if I’m not inspired, I can’t really do the music. I can’t feel it.

People have so much going on in their heads. I’m like, If you could write a song, you’d feel so much better!

I think kids are natural actors. You watch most kids; if they don’t have a toy, they’ll pick up a stick and make a toy out of it. Kids will daydream all the time.

The truth is I love being alive. And I love feeling free. So if I can’t have those things then I feel like a caged animal and I’d rather not be in a cage. I’d rather be dead. And it’s real simple. And I think it’s not that uncommon.

When younger writers and poets, musicians and painters are weakened by a stemming of funds, they come to me saddened, not as full of dreams and excitement and ideas. I am then weakened and diminished, and made less rich.

A true artist is expected to be all that is noble-minded, and this is not altogether a mistake; on the other hand, however, in what a mean way are critics allowed to pounce upon us.

You can stroke people with words.

‚No comment‘ is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again.

Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence.

Necessity… the mother of invention.

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 lack that gives us inspiration. It’s not fullness.

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.

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

It was not a religion that attacked us that September day. It was al-Qaeda. We will not sacrifice the liberties we cherish or hunker down behind walls of suspicion and mistrust.

Painting is an infinitely minute part of my personality.

To a guy like me, a laugh is full of information.

Searching for music is like searching for God. They’re very similar. There’s an effort to reclaim the unmentionable, the unsayable, the unseeable, the unspeakable, all those things, comes into being a composer and to writing music and to searching for notes and pieces of musical information that don’t exist.

Freedom is the right to live as we wish.

Generally, a writer of force is anywhere from 20 years to 200 years ahead of his generation.