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

I believe in being an innovator.

As soon as I hear a sound, it always suggests a mood to me.

Art! Who comprehends her? With whom can one consult concerning this great goddess?

The word ‚good‘ has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.

I’m a painter in sound.

An artist needn’t be a clergyman or a churchwarden, but he certainly must have a warm heart for his fellow men.

A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians.

In the 1960s when the recording studio suddenly really took off as a tool, it was the kids from art school who knew how to use it, not the kids from music school. Music students were all stuck in the notion of music as performance, ephemeral. Whereas for art students, music as painting? They knew how to do that.

It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.

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

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

I feel that when you care about your music, taking risks is something you should do to keep things exciting.

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.

Being an artist doesn’t just mean you have a song. That doesn’t make you an artist. The word ‚artist‘ means so many different things, and I feel like to be a real one, you really have to do it all. The people that I think of as artists – Tyler the Creator, Childish Gambino, Kanye West – are doing the most.

As a songwriter, you respect and appreciate the writings of other people, and I often get asked, are there songs out there I wish I’d written? Yes. There’s many of them!

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 worked with Congress on legislation, gave speeches to CEOs, military generals and Hollywood executives. But I also worked to ensure that my efforts would resonate with kids and families – and that meant doing things in a creative and unconventional way. So, yeah, I planted a garden and hula-hooped on the White House lawn with kids.

When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it. That’s when you can get more creative in solving problems.

An idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at all.

A collection is not just one basic idea. It comes from something that is in the air, something you suddenly like and put down on paper and then work out.

The best author will be the one who is ashamed to become a writer.

The idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at all.

Van Gogh never made a penny in his entire lifetime. He painted because it was his soul, his excitement. It was what aligned him with his Source of being. It’s the same with me and writing.

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.

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex and vital.

In the future, you won’t buy artists‘ works; you’ll buy software that makes original pieces of ‚their‘ works, or that recreates their way of looking at things. You could buy a Shostakovich box, or you could buy a Brahms box. You might want some Shostakovich slow-movement-like music to be generated. So then you use that box.

I only type every third night. I have no plan. My mind is a blank. I sit down. The typewriter gives me things I don’t even know I’m working on. It’s a free lunch. A free dinner. I don’t know how long it is going to continue, but so far there is nothing easier than writing.

All of my writing is God-given.

Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relation.

Before I do anything, I think, well what hasn’t been seen. Sometimes, that turns out to be something ghastly and not fit for society. And sometimes that inspiration becomes something that’s really worthwhile.

Metal, I love metal sounds. If I have a stick with me, I just drag it across a fence. And all fences make different sounds, just like people when they laugh.

What inspires me about rap is that it’s written in an almost poetic way. I just think it’s so cool.

Facts do not speak for themselves. They speak for or against competing theories. Facts divorced from theories or visions are mere isolated curiosities.

There are events which are so great that if a writer has participated in them his obligation is to write truly rather than assume the presumption of altering them with invention.

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

I don’t like to write like God. It is only because you never do it, though, that the critics think you can’t do it.

I kind of make a film for myself to sort of express myself.

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.

I draw from the crowd a lot.

Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.

The poet, being an imitator like a painter or any other artist, must of necessity imitate one of three objects – things as they were or are, things as they are said or thought to be, or things as they ought to be. The vehicle of expression is language – either current terms or, it may be, rare words or metaphors.

My kind of composing is more like the work of a gardener. The gardener takes his seeds and scatters them, knowing what he is planting but not quite what will grow where and when – and he won’t necessarily be able to reproduce it again afterwards either.

Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.

U2’s best work has always been when we didn’t know what we’re doing.

I’m a pretty decent writer. It comes easy to me. I don’t agonize over sentences. I write like I talk. I try to make them good books.

I enjoy being involved in making the artwork for albums and stupid stuff like that.

Atlas was permitted the opinion that he was at liberty, if he wished, to drop the Earth and creep away; but this opinion was all that he was permitted.

Everything in the world exists to end up in a book.

All of my music is honest.

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.

Almost any biographer, if he respects facts, can give us much more than another fact to add to our collection. He can give us the creative fact; the fertile fact; the fact that suggests and engenders.

The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.

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

I love making music. That’s what I love to do. So I don’t feel like there’s any need to take a break unless I want to.

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

Songwriting is my way of channeling my feelings and my thoughts. Not just mine, but the things I see, the people I care about. My head would explode if I didn’t get some of that stuff out.

Good ideas are free – or at least they should be.

I’ve had mixtapes that have been better than albums I’ve heard from other artists. I take my time; I put my heart into it.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

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.