You are remembered for the rules you break.

Substitute ‚damn‘ every time you’re inclined to write ‚very‘; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

You stand out in the crowd only because you have these many, many carrying you on their shoulders.

And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see – or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read.

When you draw or paint a tree, you do not imitate the tree; you do not copy it exactly as it is, which would be mere photography. To be free to paint a tree or a flower or a sunset, you have to feel what it conveys to you: the significance, the meaning of it.

What turns me on about the digital age, what excited me personally, is that you have closed the gap between dreaming and doing. You see, it used to be that if you wanted to make a record of a song, you needed a studio and a producer. Now, you need a laptop.

As a musician and a songwriter, it is an act of the ego to believe that other people might be interested in your point of view. But it is usually an empathetic nature that gets you going in the first place. Music keeps the heart porous in many ways.

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.

I’m rather kind of old school, thinking that when an artist does his work, it’s no longer his… I just see what people make of it.

I want to thank The Beatles for almost single-handedly getting me out of writer’s block.

It is a joy to be an artist, but it doesn’t mean very much unless that work is somehow useful in some way and contributes to others.

Painting is an infinitely minute part of my personality.

I create stars.

You make a movie, and if somebody reads something into it, then great, more power to him.

He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.

To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.

You see something, then it clicks with something else, and it will make a story. But you never know when it’s going to happen.

The book is not really the container for the book. The book itself is the narrative. It’s the thing that people create.

God made me and broke the mold.

Perhaps it’s good for one to suffer. Can an artist do anything if he’s happy? Would he ever want to do anything? What is art, after all, but a protest against the horrible inclemency of life?

One often makes music to supplement one’s world.

Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things.

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.

I talk about myself in the third person all the time. I don’t live my life in the way someone like you does. I live my life completely serving only my work and my fans.

Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.

We boil at different degrees.

To do a dull thing with style-now that’s what I call art.

If you love something – and there are things that I love – you do want more and more and more of it, but that’s not the way to produce good work.

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

My view is there’s no bad time to innovate.

In a democracy, the well-being, individuality and happiness of every citizen is important for the overall prosperity, peace and happiness of the nation.

There’s an ecstatic side to writing. It’s like jazz. It just has a life.

I knew I wanted to do something creative. I didn’t think I’d have the luxury of doing something like that, because I didn’t know anyone who had pursued anything they really adored, but I had dreams for singing or writing.

A lot of my rhymes are just to get chuckles out of people. Anybody with half a brain is going to be able to tell when I’m joking and when I’m serious.

I don’t set out to write about spirituality; I am free to do something different every time.

I don’t live by all these rigid, weird rules that make me feel all fenced in. I just like the way that I feel like, and that makes me feel very free.

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.

I used to – my earliest memory of waking up with a melody in my head was, you know, 8, 9, 10. I’ve always heard kind of melodies in my head.

Find enough clever things to say, and you’re a Prime Minister; write them down and you’re a Shakespeare.

Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.

You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.

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.

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

The worst thing I can be is the same as everybody else. I hate that.

I learned, when I look in the mirror and tell my story, that I should be myself and not peep whatever everybody is doing.

I look out at the stadiums full of people and see them all knowing the words to songs I wrote. And curling their hair! I remember straightening my hair because I wanted to be like everybody else, and now the fact that anybody would emulate what I do? It’s just funny. And wonderful.

There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.

Music is this divine thing, the closest that we can get to something divine. It’s like this instinct we all own, and some of us have found a way to hear that music and write it down and share it with people.

It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

I see drawings and pictures in the poorest of huts and the dirtiest of corners.

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.

I spent a lot of years trying to outrun or outsmart vulnerability by making things certain and definite, black and white, good and bad. My inability to lean into the discomfort of vulnerability limited the fullness of those important experiences that are wrought with uncertainty: Love, belonging, trust, joy, and creativity to name a few.

Helped are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conception and realize a partnership in the creation of the Universe that keeps them responsible and cheerful.

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

Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.

Genius is a potential that lives within you and every other human being. You have many moments of genius in your lifetime. These are the times when you have a uniquely brilliant idea and implement it even if only you are aware of how fantastic it is.

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.

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

By the mid-’60s, recorded music was much more like painting than it was like traditional music. When you went into the studio, you could put a sound down, then you could squeeze it around, spread it all around the canvas.

We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves in order to be like other people.