Quotes About Expression

I write... sonnets... and writing sonnets is boring. You have to find rhymes; you have to write hendecasyllables; so after a while, I get bored and my drawer is overflowing with unfinished short poems.

Good, well-defined, well-honed art is not a foreign language. You can sell it to people. You just have to move your ego out of the way, clear out the unfinished fantasies you have about being an artist yourself, and just sell it.

Once I'm given an idea for a story I have a million ideas on how it should be illustrated, but I don't have a big shoebox full of unfinished ideas.

I work every day. I write every day. I walk around in silent conversation with my latest unfinished songs.

I always write three or four projects at the same time. They're stories that I want to tell, and usually I dump them unfinished for the next one in order not to get too cornered and depressed about it.

I'm a nervous sharer. I'm nervous to share things in their unfinished state just because, I mean, it's kind of embarrassing. You know what it could be, but you can't explain what it's going to be.

If I feel like I've completely drained every ounce of energy out of me for this song, and I can't go any further with it, then I stop, even if the song is unfinished. Most of the time, when it's finished, it's because I've used every ounce of me to write it.

If I was a painter, I would have hundreds of finished and unfinished canvases in my studio waiting for people to see, and it is the same with my music. I've got so many pieces of music and songs waiting to be heard.

Democratic societies are unfit for the publication of such thunderous revelations as I am in the habit of making.

Stories surge up out of nowhere, and if they feel compelling, you follow them. You let them unfold inside you and see where they are going to lead.

Even if I never sold another book, I'd keep writing, because the stories are here, in my head. Stories that just need to be told. I love watching a plot unfold, and feeling the surprise when the unexpected happens.

When you have great performers and have set your movie in the right direction, it's a beautiful privilege to let the camera watch the action unfold without spoken words.

I don't know what gives me more pleasure: watching my story unfold or going in and watching a room full of black people talking for me and writing words for black people.

The painting develops before my eyes, unfolding its surprises as it progresses. It is this which gives me the sense of complete liberty, and for this reason I am incapable of forming a plan or making a sketch beforehand.

I think when I'm drawing, I'm seeing what's happening on the page almost as if it were unfolding like a movie in my head.

I've always hated narrative songs. I hate those songs where, basically, it's an unfolding of a story.

'Boy,' 'October,' 'War,' 'The Unforgettable Fire' and 'The Joshua Tree,' those records, they're part of my musical DNA and structure.

Just knowing that I'm on Earth to give music and help people create moments in their lives that's unforgettable with my music has kept me grounded.

I would prefer to have a more appealing job. If I could still change careers, I would prefer it. This unfortunate art is made for long beards and ugly faces rather than for a relatively well-endowed woman.

It's unfortunate we've never been just songwriters.

I'm from the old school - you go where the power is, and you try to make fun of it. When it becomes off limits to say or do certain things without being brutalized or censored or whatever, it's unfortunate.

It's something that jazz has gotten away from, and it's unfortunate. Players aren't physical anymore.

If you go to a building to skate, or if you go to these places to skate, you're told it's against the law in some cities. It's definitely a bummer. It's unfortunate.

I don't like swearing on the air. As a matter of fact, I'm not a prude, but... I watch HBO and some of the comedy stuff, and I'm constantly asking myself, 'Why have we gone there?' It seems like it's unfortunate. It's so cheap. It's so easy.