A great poet is the most precious jewel of a nation.

Singers come and go, but if you're a good actor, you can last a long time

I'm very happy to hear that my work inspires writers and painters. It's the most beautiful compliment, the greatest reward. Art should always be an exchange.

Every work of art is an uncommitted crime.

Adding sound to movies would be like putting lipstick on the Venus de Milo.

We all know that art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.

Play it fuckin' loud!

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

When you were young, and your heart, was an open book. You used to say, live and let live.

If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it.

The music industry can make you feel like a prostitute.

Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances.

Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth.

The only escape from the miseries of life are music and cats...

I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to.

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.

I love rock-n-roll. I think it's an exciting art form. It's revolutionary. Still revolutionary and it changed people. It changed their hearts. But yeah, even rock-n-roll has a lot of rubbish, really bad music.

The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.

Real popular culture is folk art - coalminers' songs and so forth.

Artistic talent is a gift from God and whoever discovers it in himself has a certain obligation: to know that he cannot waste this talent, but must develop it.

Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.