Henry David Thoreau Quotes

When you write songs, you can't really point out the exact thing you're inspired by. It's more a state or a mood or an atmosphere that you're trying to put into words.

Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting.

Until it is kindled by a spirit as flamingly alive as the one which gave it birth a book is dead to us. Words divested of their magic are but dead hieroglyphs.

Hope and Memory have one daughter and her name is Art, and she has built her dwelling far from the desperate field where men hang out their garments upon forked boughs to be banners of battle. O beloved daughter of Hope and Memory, be with me for a while.

I like stories about people. I like things that are human and different. I want to be as engaged in my work as I am in reading a book. I want to be electrified by the films I do.

The Poet is like the prince of the clouds, who haunts the tempest and laughs at the archer. Exiled on the ground in the midst of the jeering crowd, his giant's wings keep him from walking.

Hopefully people can see my music is tethered to my brain.

I don't get my inspiration from a specific source. It's more like if you listen to a good tune, it gives me inspiration to write a better tune.

An age which is incapable of poetry is incapable of any kind of literature except the cleverness of a decadence.

There's usually a rhythm and a melody in my head, and that creates an emotional state.

Songwriting is a mysterious art. When I sit down to write a song, the end result should be mysterious and have this dark quality.

Artists thrive off each other, and when you see other people doing cool stuff, it inspires you to do cool stuff.

If not for my mom, I wouldn't be a writer today. When I was a little girl, I rarely saw her without a book in her hand.

Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.

My best songs come from a place outside myself.

Music is closer to poetry than anything.

It's weird: I don't really know where I pull my inspiration from. I think it's N.E.R.D.

I just make up lyrics off the top of my head. A lot of times, there's a phrase I really like, and I kind of build the song around that.

Art finds a way to be constructive. It becomes heat in cold places; it becomes light in dark places.

I may have a general broad-based idea of what I want to write about when I sit down to write a book, but I don't have any idea of what it's going to say. I would call my experience of creativity 'inspired by God' to produce certain pieces of information that might be useful to others.

It is my belief that books are living things.

Condense some daily experience into a glowing symbol and an audience is electrified.

It's insane to be a writer and not be a reader. When I'm writing I'm more likely to be reading four or five books at once, just in bits and pieces rather than subjecting myself to a really brilliant book and thinking, "Well what's the point of me writing anything?" I'm more likely to read a book through when I take a break from writing.

There are noble books but one wants the breath of life sometimes.