Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.

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.

Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.

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.

I want to write so well that a person is 30 or 40 pages in a book of mine… before she realizes she’s reading.

When you seek the presence of your creative Spirit and are filled with passion about virtually everything you undertake, you’ll successfully remove the roadblocks from your life and enjoy the active presence of Spirit.

Genius, when young, is divine.

Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.

I’m an inventor.

Take my wife… Please!

There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.

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

But, you know, it’s still a drag to get your picture taken when you’re eating a sandwich. It’s a downer.

I’ll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there’s evidence of any thinking going on inside it.

I’m not in control of my muse. My muse does all the work.

In the past there were people who were not rich but contented with their living style, laughing and happy all day. But when the new rich people appear, people look at them and ask, ‚why don’t I have a life like that too, a beautiful house, car and garden,‘ and they abandon their values.

I was in a queer mood, thinking myself very old: but now I am a woman again – as I always am when I write.

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.

I wake up in the morning and my mind starts making sentences, and I have to get rid of them fast – talk them or write them down.

You have to be practical. So every time I say, if you want to write a novel you have to be practical, people get bored. They are disappointed. They are expecting a more dynamic, creative, artistic thing to say. What I want to say is: you have to be practical.

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

Never accept a drink from a urologist.

Opera happens because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong.

Husbands never become good; they merely become proficient.

Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution?

Never injure a friend, even in jest.

No one sells a song better than the person that wrote it.

Stand-up comedy is mine: it’s my entity; it’s my brand; I own it. I do it when I want to do it.

Great and good are seldom the same man.

Technique is really personality. That is the reason why the artist cannot teach it, why the pupil cannot learn it, and why the aesthetic critic can understand it.

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor.

A good day is one where I can not just read a book, but write a review of it. Maybe today I’ll be able to do that. I get for some reason somewhat stronger when the sun starts to go down. Dusk is a good time for me. I’m crepuscular.

If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead.

Humor is the most engaging cowardice.

If my films don’t show a profit, I know I’m doing something right.

Writing is fun – at least mostly. I write for four hours every day. After that I go running. As a rule, 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). That’s easy to manage.

Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender.

The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.

Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.

I know I’m more on television, and I’m more recognisable than maybe even the players because they run and train, but I just stand there, and my face does all these funny things that everyone can see all the time.

Good leaders must communicate vision clearly, creatively, and continually. However, the vision doesn’t come alive until the leader models it.

I enjoy singing my songs in front of people. I enjoy being involved in making the artwork for albums and stupid stuff like that.

Every band I’ve worked with also wants to be countercultural in the sense that they want to feel that they’ve gone somewhere that nobody else has been.

You do projects with the hope they will be big and hope they will go beyond what you imagine.

People always say when they meet me that I’m not what they expect. I assume they think I’m this super dark and depressing guy, but I like to channel all of those emotions into my work.

Yet, it is true, poetry is delicious; the best prose is that which is most full of poetry.

And I try to give the best bang for the buck. I love performing more than anything else.

If I haven’t any talent for writing books or newspaper articles, well, then I can always write for myself.

The more you observe politics, the more you’ve got to admit that each party is worse than the other.

I don’t like magic – but I have been known to make guys disappear.

In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing.

I do love the films I’ve done in the past. I work hard in my movies and my friends work hard and we’re trying to make people laugh and I’m very proud of that.

We participate in a tragedy; at a comedy we only look.

I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.

Well, Art is Art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know.

I really started writing music to challenge myself, to see what I could write.

Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.

Your feelings so are important to write down, to capture, and to remember because today you’re heartbroken, but tomorrow you’ll be in love again.