Question: "Where do you look for inspiration when you write your songs. Does inspiration come from a variety of different places?"

Michael Jackson: "Well, the best songs that are written write themselves. You don't ask for them, they just drop into your lap. Then there are those songs that, you know, you kind of uh, incubate. You know, you plant the seed, let the subconscious take its course, and within time you hope something comes, and most the time it does. I don't believe in the concept of writer's block -- that is a bad word. You create it when you say it. There's no such thing. Um, like any painter or sculptor, they paint... they do their best work when they're in the 60s and their 70s. Fred Astaire did his best dancing when he was in his 70s. Angelo [Michelangelo] sculpted late into his 60s and 70s, doing brilliant ingenious work. But in the music business some of these great artists have become stumped because they self-abuse themselves at a young age, with all these crazy things they drink and pills and things, and uh, that's just not good -- just not a good thing. I hate to say that to hurt anybody, but we should take care of our bodies a little more.

Online audio chat Oct 26th 2001.

"We would work on a track and then we'd meet at his house, play what we worked on, and he would say, 'Smelly, let it talk to you.' I'd go, 'OK.' He'd say, 'If the song needs something, it'll tell you. Let it talk to you.' I've learned to do that. The key to being a wonderful writer is not to write. You just get out of the way. Leave room for God to walk in the room. And when I write something that I know is right, I get on my knees and say thank you. Thank you, Jehovah!"

Michael Jackson about working with Quincy Jones, Ebony Magazine 2007.

Question: How do you channel your creativity?

Michael: I don't force it, I let nature take its course. I don't sit at the piano and think, I'm going to write the greatest song of all time. It doesn't happen. It has to be given to you. I believe it's already up there before you are born, and then it drops right into your lap. It's the most spiritual thing in the world. When it comes, it comes with all the accompaniments, the strings, the bass, the drums, the lyrics, and you're just the medium through which it comes, the channel. Sometimes I feel guilty putting my name on songs — written by Michael Jackson — because it's as if the heavens have done it already. Like Michelangelo would have this huge piece of marble from the quarries of Italy, and he'd say, "Inside is a sleeping form." He takes a hammer and chisel, and he's just freeing it. It's already in there. It's already there.

Vibe Magazine, March 2002.