Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer.
When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
Sometimes it’s necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly.
My aim is to put down what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way I can tell it.
It is the stretched soul that makes music, and souls are stretched by the pull of opposites, opposite bents, tastes, yearnings, loyalties. Where there is no polarity, where energies flow smoothly in one direction, there will be much doing but no music.
Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem — in my opinion — to characterize our age.
If a story is in you, it has to come out.
What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?
The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is on the contrary born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else, we…
You don’t make decisions because they are easy; you don’t make them because they are cheap; you don’t make them because they are popular; you make them because they’re right.
When you play music, don’t play the idea that’s there, play the next idea. Wait. Wait another beat, or maybe two, and maybe you’ll have something that’s more fresh. Don’t just play from the top of your head, but listen and try to play a little deeper. Don’t play what’s there. Play what’s not there.
The greatest attribute a producer can have is the ability to see the whole picture. Most artists, when they record something, don’t listen to the whole thing. They listen to what they’re doing. It’s a bit like when you’re a kid and you look at a school photograph of a hundred kids. The first thing…
It is the nature of stone / to be satisfied / It is the nature of water / to want to be somewhere else.
“If they give you lined paper, write the other way.”
The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.
It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.
The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.
When I’m with Gladstone, I’m convinced that he’s the most interesting person in the kingdom; but when I’m with Disraeli, I’m convinced that I’m the most interesting person in the kingdom.
Sumner Redstone came all the time to visit me [after my stroke]. He held my hand and said, “You’re gonna make it! I was burnt to death and now I can walk. And you’re gonna make it, too!” The doctors told him to not keep coming back because I wasn’t going to make it, but…
Kites rise highest against the wind — not with it.
The Noah Principle: No more prizes for predicting rain. Prizes only for building arks.
We must dare to think unthinkable thoughts. We must learn to explore all the options and possibilities that confront us in a complex and rapidly changing world. We must learn to welcome and not to fear the voices of dissent. We must dare to think about unthinkable things because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops…
Reward excellent failures. Punish mediocre successes.
You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.
Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.
Surface is illusion, but so is depth.
When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.
There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.
You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
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