People want to know why I do this, why I write such gross stuff. I like to tell them I have the heart of a small boy… and I keep it in a jar on my desk.

College isn’t the place to go for ideas.

The writing is important, but the way you say the line and the pause you give it, the facial expression – all of that is very important.

Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.

The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.

I won’t belong to any organization that would have me as a member.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

My heroes don’t have anything special. They have something to tell other people but they don’t know how, so they talk to themselves.

I do not, in fact, use many puns. Certainly there are far fewer than people believe. But I suspect the ones I do occasionally use tend to hang around in people’s memories for a while.

I can get where some scientists would say comedians are crazy. What you have to understand: A lot of comedians are dealing with a dark passion. A lot of these are guys coming from a tumultuous life, including myself. Some people need outlets, a way to express yourself.

The man who has no imagination has no wings.

Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig. I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

O, had I but followed the arts!

Most poets are young simply because they have not been caught up. Show me an old poet, and I’ll show you, more often than not, either a madman or a master… it’s when you begin to lie to yourself in a poem in order simply to make a poem that you fail. That is why I do not rework poems.

All of my songs are autobiographical.

I don’t want to make niche-oriented music.

When I’m inspired, I get excited because I can’t wait to see what I’ll come up with next.

However my parents – both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing quirk that would never pay a mortgage or secure a pension.

Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.

When I do have free time, I spend it with friends, or I spend it at home writing or making something.

Art raises its head where creeds relax.

I learn poetry, learn text, and that really keeps you alive.

I need drama in my life to keep making music.

If you make any money, the government shoves you in the creek once a year with it in your pockets, and all that don’t get wet you can keep.

One of the interesting things about having little musical knowledge is that you generate surprising results sometimes; you move to places you wouldn’t if you knew better.

It’s not easy to define poetry.

The thing is, ‚Discworld‘ had been going on for a very long time, and I’ve written children’s books as well. Usually when people have a really big series they franchise it, which I thought is a bit of a no-no, so I thought what I’d do is I’d franchise it to myself.

Marriage has no guarantees. If that’s what you’re looking for, go live with a car battery.

You look like a talent scout for a cemetery.

Writing bores me so.

If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything.

If I’m inspired to make a certain kind of song, I’m going to make that kind of song, no matter if it’s what they know me as or think I am.

I like the app where you can make your own memes. I make memes all the time and send them to my friends.

Literature must rest always on a principle, and temporal considerations are no principle at all. For, to the poet, all times and places are one; the stuff he deals with is eternal and eternally the same: no theme is inept, no past or present preferable.

When I was 16, I started publishing all kinds of things in school magazines.

The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.

No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time a steady eye.

I learned a long time ago that reality was much weirder than anyone’s imagination.

If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.

I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate.

Like getting into a bleeding competition with a blood bank.

I usually don’t like to ‚spoon feed‘ my audience, because I grew up idolizing story tellers who tell stories using symbolism, so it was in my nature to do the same.

Of course it’s the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story.

I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, ‚Where’s the self-help section?‘ She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.

I am not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

In business or in life, don’t follow the wagon tracks too closely.

The function of the artist is to invent, not to chronicle.

Everything I say is a joke. I am a joke myself.

I knew I wanted to do something creative. I didn’t think I’d have the luxury of doing something like that, because I didn’t know anyone who had pursued anything they really adored, but I had dreams for singing or writing.

Music is a really great creative tool for me, for different roles.

The difference is slight, to the influence of an author, whether he is read by five hundred readers, or by five hundred thousand; if he can select the five hundred, he reaches the five hundred thousand.

You can’t build a plot out of jokes. You need tragic relief. And you need to let people know that when a lot of frightened people are running around with edged weaponry, there are deaths. Stupid deaths, usually. I’m not writing ‚The A-Team‘ – if there’s a fight going on, people will get hurt. Not letting this happen would be a betrayal.

A true artist is expected to be all that is noble-minded, and this is not altogether a mistake; on the other hand, however, in what a mean way are critics allowed to pounce upon us.

What’s with you men? Would hair stop growing on your chest if you asked directions somewhere?

The job of art is to chase ugliness away.

Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure, only death can stop it.

They’ve got this crazy actor who’s 82 years old up there in a suit. I was a mayor, and they’re probably thinking I know how to give a speech, but even when I was mayor I never gave speeches. I gave talks.

I was enjoying myself writing, because I don’t know what’s going to happen when I take a ride around that corner. You don’t know at all what you’re going to find there. That can be thrilling when you read a book, especially when you’re a kid and you’re reading stories.

The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I’m just not close enough to get the job done.

I think a lot of people, including me, clammed up when a civilian asked about battle, about war. It was fashionable. One of the most impressive ways to tell your war story is to refuse to tell it, you know. Civilians would then have to imagine all kinds of deeds of derring-do.