Sometimes people say I should see a therapist, but I don't want any therapist wrecking my weirdness.

Of course, your ideas can be stolen... I used to think it was immoral; now I think of it as a compliment... Ultimately, an idea isn't yours; it's only your take on something.

If you have a success, the terror is how on earth can you follow it up.

You have to get something down, and then find ways of working in complexity and different layers of meaning... My first drafts are usually the ravings of a delusional fantasist.

It's important to balance the drudgery with inspiration. It's a nightmare if you are just existing in the present project - you don't feel a sense of your own growth.

My journey is technical complexity.

My big struggle has been how to expand my mind without being able to expand my physical experience of the world.

You have to put yourself to one side and get away from the 'Victorian poet' model where you are the universe. You have to do everything you can to take your ego out of the equation.

I was like one of those people who is allergic to the twentieth century... I'd been brought up to think there was some order to things, but there was no safety net. Doctors accused me of being mad.

you can't just tell someone to trust you..you gotta show them that they can trust you....

Ignorance never protected anyone for long.

Thought is the toil of the intelligence, revery its voluptuousness. To replace thought with revery is to confound a poison with a food.

The world is full of people who will help you manufacture tornados in order to blow out a match.

Not a day passes over the earth but men and women of no note do great deeds speak great words and suffer noble sorrows.

I stay in tune with my family and God.

We come from people who brought us up to believe that life is a struggle, and if you should feel really happy, be patient: this will pass.

If you've got a problem, take it out on a drum.

I was compiling a list in my head titled 'Reasons to Get Up: You Don't Have to Leave, but You Can't Pee Here.