Each song is a child I nourish and give my love to. But even if you have never written a song, your life is a song. How can it not be?

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.

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

Art not only imitates nature, but also completes its deficiencies.

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

I passionately hate the idea of being with it, I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.

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

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.

Intellectual passion drives out sensuality.

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.

And I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinking.

A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.

I accept chaos, I'm not sure whether it accepts me.

Music melts all the separate parts of our bodies together.

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

Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth.

Music is mediator between spiritual and sensual life.

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

Music can change the world because it can change people.

Music should be something that makes you gotta move, inside or outside

The music industry can make you feel like a prostitute.