Your best work as an artist comes from emotion and the heart, not the head. The head only comes in after to look at what the heart has presented.

If you're making something with a freedom of 'This is something I'm making for myself for now; that's all it is. It's a diary entry, everything I make is a diary entry,' the beauty of a diary entry is I can write my diary entry, and you can't tell me my diary entry wasn't good enough or that's not what I experienced. Of course, it's what I experienced. Im writing a personal diary for myself. No one else can judge it. It is my experience of my life.

The best art divides the audience

At the end of the fourth or fifth or sixth round of being in an ice tub, there is nothing in the world that bothers you

Being a great artist, we think of it as the person who makes the thing; we think about it that as the making. What makes an artist great happens not in the making; it happens in the way of being in the world, the way of experiencing the world, the way of noticing the thing that someone else doesn't notice, the way of seeing what's beautiful when everyone else sees the mundane.

That's the way I like to work. I go in with kind of a blind belief that something good will happen, and until it's proven impossible, I will continue banging my head against the wall.

As Maharishi described it, every time you meditate, it's like making a deposit in a bank, so it's always there. Every time you do it, you're building a base. And the goal of the practice is less about the practice; the practice is to change the way you are in the world.

Over 14 months I lost a hundred and thirty-five pounds

To make great art, submerge yourself in great art

Someone who's successful enjoys their life, is great at what they do, is curious, and continually pushing forward and wanting to be better than they were yesterday without beating themselves up about it

We can train ourselves to do absolutely anything, it's really just getting the right information

I would never assume because you put more time into something, it's getting better. Most people equate work time with progress, and that's not the case.

As an artist, compete only with yourself

If you can make a piece of music that can take your breath away as much as a beautiful sunset, you've done well

The question of 'worth it' is reliant on an outcome. We don't make these things for an outcome. It's not the mindset to make something great. The outcome happens. You're making the best thing you can make ... Whatever happens after that, happens. And that part that happens after it is completely out of your control. Putting any energy into that part that's out of your control to waste of time...

Chipping away, one step at a time, you can you can really get through anything

Calories DO matter in the weight loss process

Let music be discovered, not manufactured

Collaboration, you would expect, to be working with others, but it's not. The collaboration section is about working with yourself and the universe. Everything we make is a collaboration, because we're not doing anything ourselves ... All of the things that make us who we are, we bring into all of our projects. So, we're always in collaboration. It's never our idea.

If you speak to a scientist or a mathematician about some problem that was very difficult to solve... eventually, when they get to the solution, it's not exotic. It, more often than not, it was right there the whole time. It was so obvious. We miss what's right in front of us.

We're scientists experimenting, and it's all an experiment. And sometimes we get the experiment right at the beginning, and we don't know it—and we won't know it until we may do a hundred other iterations that are not better.

In most collaborative projects... they'll be many ideas, and there will be a battle of wills to see which idea wins ... It's more of an ego conflict battle ... From my experience, those are not how the best decisions are made.

If you pay attention to the calories you consume for let's say a year, you really have a better sense of where the calories are hidden in food

Don't beat yourself up - it's not good for you or your work

One thing that helped Rick lose weight - getting 20 minutes of sun as soon as he woke up

There's so many things that get in the way of the artistic process

Try to find a way to get feedback from people who genuinely care about you and your work, not a general reader.