I don’t like the name, U2, actually.

I need drama in my life to keep making music.

I just try to write songs that people are going to have a dialogue about.

Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

I don’t want to express my opinion about actual politics, because if I do, I have to be responsible for my decision.

I still wanna rap better than everybody else, and I wanna say important things.

A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians.

I’m the king of the anthems.

Today, I’d like to talk to Bob Marley. I’d just like to ask him what was his method. Bob is one of the greatest songwriters ever. I don’t know if people understand how powerful his songs are and the simplicity and genius behind them, from ‚Redemption Song‘ to ‚Is This Love?‘ and ‚I Shot the Sheriff.‘

Music is really driving my whole life.

This land is your land and this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway.

I do value the respect I get from my contemporaries, but to have Oasis cover my song, to have Puff Daddy cover a song, to have Goldie come along to my gigs – that’s where my ego is at. To have my fellow musicians like what I do, that’s very cool.

Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

Many of my fans often tell me that they listen to my songs to get through things. And therefore, obviously, I hope that they can picture being in a place where things are better… I hope my songs can bring people to a calm place.

Hatred is active, and envy passive dislike; there is but one step from envy to hate.

Punk is musical freedom. It’s saying, doing and playing what you want. In Webster’s terms, ‚nirvana‘ means freedom from pain, suffering and the external world, and that’s pretty close to my definition of Punk Rock.

It’s terrifying to play your favorite band’s song in front of your favorite band.

I don’t know anything about music. In my line you don’t have to.

One of the benefits of playing to small audiences in small clubs for a few years is that you’re allowed to fail.

If this were all to go away tomorrow, all the big success, I would still be very happy going from bar to bar playing music for people.

People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed around – the music and the ideas.

Latin music is universal.

I never went to rock concerts when I was a kid. I didn’t see any rock & roll bands. I had posters on my wall. I had Beatles records.

I like to read books. I like to listen to music.

I definitely think, generally, rap is misogynistic.

We have a Boesendorfer piano that I play every day. It keeps my brain and my fingers active.

The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.

I just really want to get music out and tour and go places I’ve never been, and just do more videos. I love photography and videography, and so I really want to direct videos when I can.

You can’t imagine parlor ballads drifting out of high-rise multi-towered buildings. That kind of music existed in a more timeless state of life.

For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.

I play the harmonica. The only way I can play is if I get my car going really fast, and stick it out the window.

We don’t make music – it makes us.

People are already finding ways to make their music and play it in front of people and have a life in music, I guess, and I think that’s pretty much all you can ask.

I love story songs because I’ve always loved books.

If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

John Lennon was definitely my favorite Beatle, hands down.

I know a lot of artists say this, but it’s hard to put myself in a box. I just write songs that I strongly believe in and that are coming form a special place. There’s no tricks.

When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music. Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?

Anybody with a sense of humor is going to put on my album and laugh from beginning to end.

Like it or not, there are a lot of dance teachers in this country who respect me, whether they personally like me or not.

At the end of the day, who I really and truly am is a little girl who loved to play the piano.

So there’s no guarantee if you like the music you will empathize with the culture and the people who made it. It doesn’t necessarily happen. I think it can, but it doesn’t necessarily happen. Which is kind of a shame.

I would say that jazz is my own language.

Compton got such a legacy in hip-hop.

I have been ever of opinion that revolutions are not to be evaded.

While musical experts of the world focus on what choir members can do, I would like to focus on what choir members can be.

With all due respect, I am against dumb.

I really love the culture of hip-hop.

Pfft, I hate Christmas Day. It’s for children and families. Not for people like me.

I guess you could say I devoted myself so strongly to my music that for awhile I forgot about my family. But I only get one set of parents, and I think I forgot about that for a little while.

I think Pat Robertson is a terrific fellow.

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.

I wanted to be Gerry Mulligan, only, see, I didn’t have any kind of technique. So I thought, well, baritone sax is kind of easier; I can manage that – except I couldn’t afford a baritone, so I bought an alto, which was the same fingering.

I could sing you a thousand and one doo-wop songs. I love the simplicity in that music. It’s not super-poetic, it’s just from the heart.

Even if my songs are quite sad or quite dark, I don’t want my songs to make people sad. It’s very important for me that all my songs have some kind of hope or light.

Music from my fourth year began to be the first of my youthful occupations. Thus early acquainted with the gracious muse who tuned my soul to pure harmonies, I became fond of her, and, as it often seemed to me, she of me.

Genres aren’t closed boxes. Stuff flows back and forth across the borders all the time.

Whatever I’m feeling, whatever I’m going through, whatever mood I’m in… If I’m feeling like dancing or clubbing, then it will be reflected in the music. If I’m feeling dark and vulnerable, then it will reflect in the music, too.

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

I found music to be the therapy of choice. I guess it is for a lot of people.