I don't know if Prince even really paid attention to time. The moment of creativity is the moment, and you go at that moment.

I stopped writing fiction the moment I started writing songs, and I miss it.

Very little thought goes into making this stuff I make. It is on impulse. I think of colors all day and suddenly if I think of ice blue, I wonder if red or yellow will go with it.

A film is made in somebody's head - out of their determination to do it at all.

Talent perceives differences; genius, unity.

Bands develop their own weird ways of doing things.

Basically I write songs, and I need for there to be a home for these songs.

When we built Amblin, we even put Murphy beds in there because we thought that was so practical. Why would anybody, if you were working on something, need to go home at night? You'd just stay there,...

You have to be very brave in that first writing session.

An idea's birth is legitimate if one has the feeling that one is catching oneself plagiarizing oneself.

You have to learn how to write each book.

I found that if I don't paint for around a week, I get practically suicidal. It took a long time to figure out why I had these mood swings, and I finally figured out it's because I haven't painted.

It should take you 15 minutes to make a song, and then get out of there.

When I'm writing, I won't know whodunnit until maybe two thirds of the way through. Until then, I know as little as my detective. I just make it up as I go along. It's nerve-wracking, actually. You'll...

I love songwriting, and rap is part of my songwriting, but I'm not a rapper.

I just do whatever I do, and put it out there without tryin' to cater to anybody. If you like it, you like it.

I was going to record a solo album when I was 15 on a four-track. I started working on it, but then Fall Out Boy happened. The band was awesome and took me in a totally different direction. I don't...

Comedy or villain, the role does not matter as long as it is challenging.

When I started making movies, I was pretty young, and at the time I felt like there needed to be more confrontation in cinema - or I needed to make something more disruptive - so in the beginning,...

I am not trained to be a director or an actor. I have learnt everything by watching other people work and studying their work.

I always want to create and do things, or draw.

I am completely attracted to the idea of simplicity, or at least removing things that seem unnecessary when trying to get an idea out there.

You make 'em, I amuse 'em.

Having a sweet, wide-eyed, awkward character is more charming and allows for more range. If you come from anger, you're going to reach a ceiling very quickly.

How do poems grow? They grow out of your life.

Each memorable verse of a true poet has two or three times the written content.

There is a gap in my work from '84 to 2002, 18 years where I stopped writing. I was working at fiction and other things and starting a school and getting married and starting a family, but I wasn't...

One night, I lay awake for hours, just terrified. When the dawn finally came up - the comfortable blue sky, the familiar world returning - I could think of no other way to express my relief than...

I do not see how a man can work on the frontiers of physics and write poetry at the same time. They are in opposition.

Yes, money is important. But it's all about the creative process.