“Can you imagine if someone called us a few years ago and said, ‘All right, you're going to have this much money when you're this age. What are you gonna do with it?’ You would say all sorts of fantastical things, right? No one would say, Oh, I would figure out how to make more money and keep working…”— Aziz Ansari, gq.com
“We all dream profusely every night, yet by morning we’ve forgotten ninety percent of what went on. That’s why poets are such important members of society. Poets remember our dreams for us.”— Tom Robbins, amazon.com
“The risks associated with being a commercialized artist and embarking on a typical album release, like endless promotion and touring, have nearly killed me.”— Michael Angelakos, pitchfork.com
“I always thought "What pen do you use?" was the way artists make conversation, like "Hey, got a light?”— School of Night, twitter.com
“As he inflates his imagination, he inflates his capacity for anxiety, and inevitably becomes the victim of crushing phobias that can only be allayed by crushing doses of heroin or alcohol.”— John Cheever, amazon.com
“I used to have my heart out in front of me to every person I met. It didn’t matter who you were. I didn’t have time to make a value judgment. Everybody would get to look at it and touch it and put their gum out on it. And I would leave sad because I would go in with this huge, heavy beating heart fo…”— John Mayer, nytimes.com
“We know from myths and fairy tales that there are many different kinds of powers in this world. One child is given a light saber, another a wizard’s education. The trick is not to amass all the different kinds of power, but to use well the kind you’ve been granted.”— Susan Cain, amazon.com
“To give and create with no intent of receiving a reward is the purest form of ALOHA.”— Sheldon Simeon, instagram.com
“The lie we tell people, especially artists, is that because you’re doing something you love, you should be grateful for every GLORIOUS moment. That’s…just…not how life works?”— Ari Eastman, thoughtcatalog.com
“We say to musicians: ‘You articulated the feelings I thought were only mine. You made me feel a little less alone. You colored in this world, you made it visible and livable — so why can’t you drop an album every year?”— Anne Branigin, byrslf.co
“I have no definite talent or trade, and how I stay alive is largely a matter of magic.”— Charles Bukowski, amazon.com
“I've earned $47 in 20 years of writing and I think that $2 a year (omitting stamps, paper, envelopes, ribbons, divorces, and a typewriter) entitles one to the special privacy of a special insanity and if I need hold hands with paper gods to promote a little scurvy rhyme, I'll take the encyst and par…”— Charles Bukowski, amazon.com
“A man's soul or lack of it will be evident with what he can carve upon a white sheet of paper.”— Charles Bukowski, amazon.com
“New York has closed itself off to the young and struggling… New York City has been taken away from you … So my advice is: Find a new city.”— Patti Smith, amazon.com
“Symmetry, Instagram, Kardashians – it's over! Money is over. Rich people need to get weird again, like Diana Vreeland used to be. Like, why don't you quilt yourself a coat of white monkey fur and meander around your apartment?”— Cat Marnell, rollingstone.com