Bono, responding to a question from Oprah on where his "gift" comes from, c. November 2003:

I think God gets annoyed with the gifted. We should know that our work is no more important than a plumber's or carpenter's. And here's what I love about hip-hop artists: They set up the brand and start selling t-shirts. It's like, "Here's my chair. I built it. How many do you want?" Whereas with some other musicians, it's like, "I don't know anything about my record contract. I'm not involved in that stuff." That's such bullshit. That's one reason hip-hop is walking all over rock'n'roll right now. In what I would call alternative music, there has been a bunch of lies -- which meant that you couldn't own up to your ambition. You couldn't own up to the idea that art and commerce are certainly cousins, if not brothers. So where does all music come from -- be it hip-hop or rock'n'roll? I don't know. But I do know that all music is praise.

[From Live Your Best Life (O magazine annual), 2005]

Neil Gaiman, in a 2003 interview:

I run into many, too many, people who would love to be writers and are convinced that all you have to do is start a story and leave it on a computer or on a notebook and the elves will come in the night and finish it for you. And unfortunately the elves won't turn up. The only advice I can give is you have to do it all yourself.

Alas, yes.

*fills the ice cube tray and gets back to work*