Quotes about Artistry

I love writing every song I can like a little mini movie. I like to have a character, or some characters, and really paint a picture with the song.

The people who wrote down the Bible and the people who wrote down the Mahayana sutras were artists. They used images to express their insights.

How beautiful your sandaled feet, O prince's daughter! Your graceful legs are like jewels, the work of an artist's hands. Your navel is a rounded goblet that never lacks blended wine. Your waist is a mound of wheat encircled by lilies.

The weaver-god, he weaves; and by that weaving is deafened, that he hears no mortal voice; and by that humming, we, too, who look on the loom are deafened; and only when we escape it shall we hear the thousand voices that speak through it. 76

In many parts, I start from the outside and then it triggers things within. For 'The Piano,' I went, 'I'm going to learn these piano pieces. I'm going to learn this sign language, and I'm going to do them all day every day, five days a week.' It was a totally physical thing.

To me, the real thrill is in making the music, and then I just trust it to find its own audience, and at times it's big and at times it's small, but that's beyond my control.

Rap music deserves truth, and it deserves spontaneity.

I'm not going to start churning out what you expect. If you want me to be a manufactured act, you can f*** off.

To me, it's all about the song. Songs are what make me excited. You hear a great song and you want to record it or get a great idea and you want to write it.

I've explored the worship side, the pop side, and the film scoring side of me.

I always write tons of different styles.

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.