When you're an artist, nobody ever tells you or hits you with the magic wand of legitimacy. You have to hit your own head with your own handmade wand. And you feel stupid doing it.

When we really see each other, we want to help each other.

In both the art and the business worlds, the difference between the amateurs and the professionals is simple: The professionals know they're winging it. The amateurs pretend they're not.

Collecting the dots. Then connecting them. And then sharing the connections with those around you. This is how a creative human works. Collecting, connecting, sharing.

Asking for help with shame says: You have the power over me. Asking with condescension says: I have the power over you. But asking for help with gratitude says: We have the power to help each other.

I don't think of myself as particularly cursed or blessed. I think I got dealt a set of cards, and I'm playing with them, sometimes in heels, sometimes in combat boots.

When you're afraid of someone's judgment, you can't connect with them. You're too preoccupied with the task of impressing them.

Art is food for the soul, and an artistic climate is a healthy climate because it breeds empathy.

I crave intimacy to the same burning degree that I detest commitment.

I think people have been obsessed with the wrong question, which is how do we make people pay for music? What if we started asking, how do we let people pay for music?

The world needs actual excitement and emotion more than it needs cool people.

Freedom, I found is not only in the running but in the heart, the mind, the hands.

How many Republicans does it take to change a light bulb? Three. One to mix the martinis, one to change the light bulb, and one to reminisce about how good the old one was.

Those who would attain to any marked degree of excellence in a chosen pursuit must work, and work hard for it, prince or peasant.

It's great when you play to an audience that knows the words to all your songs, and sings them back to you.

Throwing young men out of work, throwing people into poverty and ending business life don't promote stability in the Palestinian territories,.

You don't restore 'The Last Supper' by filling in the missing bits - you preserve. You accept the material that has somehow survived.

Social issues have been used to distract Americans from their own self interests since Nixon's southern strategy, and now people are paying the price.

Love is something that we don't control. We have to be ourselves. You can be sexual, nonsexual, asexual, bisexual, or trisexual and it really doesn't have a lot to do with enlightenment.

The true measure of your character is what you would do if you were sure no one would ever find out.

I liked the girly cartoons. I was very much a girly-girl.