For instance, I’m always fascinated to see whether, given the kind of fairly known and established form called popular music, whether there is some magic combination that nobody has hit upon before.

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

Neil Young is my hero, and such a great example. You know what that guy has been doing for the past 40 years? Making music. That’s what that guy does. Sometimes you pay attention, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes he hands it to you, sometimes he keeps it to himself. He’s a good man with a beautiful family and wonderful life.

I want to keep making records as long as I can, but I don’t know how long you can be taken seriously in rap.

Rock ‚n‘ roll is ridiculous. It’s absurd. In the past, U2 was trying to duck that. Now we’re wrapping our arms around it and giving it a great big kiss.

The United States is definitely ahead in culture of innovation. If someone wants to accomplish great things, there is no better place than the U.S.

Music has the power to inspire the world.

People use technology only to mean digital technology. Technology is actually everything we make.

Today, if you invent a better mousetrap, the government comes along with a better mouse.

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.

Anything you put your mind to and add your imagination into can make your life a lot better and a lot more fun.

I often get ideas for songs on the tour bus at odd times. Like at 6am when no one is around, I’d just write.

Beautiful sentences pop into my head. Beautiful sentences that aren’t always absolutely accurate. Then, I have to choose between the beautiful sentence and being absolutely accurate. It can be a difficult choice.

My mother was always fascinated with the fact that I could rhyme so much stuff.

For me, ‚risky‘ is revealing what really happened in my life through music. Risky is writing confessional songs and telling the true story about a person with enough details so everyone knows who that person is.

Arrange whatever pieces come your way.

In high school I wanted to be a rock star and was in a lot of bands.

My songs are like my children – I expect them to support me when I’m old.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

The fame isn’t important to me. It’s a blessing to have. Having so many people that support me, that love me and listen to my music, is beautiful.

In California, we have some of the strongest consumer protection laws in the country. While it is easy to conceive of innovation and regulation as mutually exclusive, California is proof that we can do both. We can innovate responsibly.

After launching the first version of Facebook for a few thousand users, we would discuss how this should be built for the world. It wasn’t even a thought that maybe it could be us. We always thought it would be someone else doing it.

Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.

Like anything else that happens on its own, the act of writing is beyond currency. Money is great stuff to have, but when it comes to the act of creation, the best thing is not to think of money too much. It constipates the whole process.

It seemed like a very small possibility for me to become an artist. I didn’t have the need to be on the stage; I didn’t feel the need to be heard. I just needed to write.

You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.

As everything becomes digitized, there’s the idea that things that can’t be digitized become more valuable.

I definitely think, generally, rap is misogynistic.

I do put a lot of God in my music, but not because I’m super religious. There are a lot of demons in my music, too. I acknowledge both.

All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.

O, you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you, and I would have ended my life – it was only my art that held me back. Ah, it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I felt was within me.

Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States.

In a time not distant, it will be possible to flash any image formed in thought on a screen and render it visible at any place desired. The perfection of this means of reading thought will create a revolution for the better in all our social relations.

There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.

Every day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music and rings the whole day through, and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life march, as you will.

It’s kind of exhilarating, walking through a crazy, insane mob. The most miraculous process is watching a song go from a tiny idea in the middle of the night to something that 55,000 people are singing back to you.

Taylor Swift’s audience can listen to me, but so can the street kids. I want to touch it all.

The tool that’s most associated with the recent progress against malaria is the long-lasting bed net. Bed nets are a fantastic innovation. But we can do even better. We can invent new ways to control the mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasite.

I think there are going to be a bunch of tablet-like devices. It’s really a different product category.

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

I want you to feel happy and enjoy the theatre of my life the way that I do. No matter what happens with my music and wherever I go – that heart of that glamorous girl in New York will never be gone.

I think people inspire me the most. If I meet a person who is incredibly complex, and all of a sudden, I start thinking in rhymes, that person could be a muse.

Instruments sound interesting, not because of their sound, but because of the relationship a player has with them. Instrumentalists build a rapport with their instruments, which is what you like and respond to.

I wanted very much to learn to draw, for a reason that I kept to myself: I wanted to convey an emotion I have about the beauty of the world.

I get so excited when a song I wrote that’s very personal to me goes No. 1 and I look down and see people singing the words back to me.

Whenever I make music, it reflects where I’m at mentally.

America is a country of inventors, and the greatest of inventors are the newspaper men.

I play piano every day. I enjoy that.

My whole life, I’ve sung and listened to music, and since the beginning, I’ve had iTunes and used Apple Music for streaming.

It’s easy to make an album full of great songs. But I want people to go for the ride. The songs have to make sense together.

Hell is full of musical amateurs.

When you draw or paint a tree, you do not imitate the tree; you do not copy it exactly as it is, which would be mere photography. To be free to paint a tree or a flower or a sunset, you have to feel what it conveys to you: the significance, the meaning of it.

I’m an iPod person.

That terrible mood of depression of whether it’s any good or not is what is known as The Artist’s Reward.

I just wanted to be a songwriter. I did really not like the sound of my own voice.

If a man can… make a better mousetrap, the world will make a beaten path to his door.

I really wish I knew what I was doing because I’d be writing hit songs every minute.

What inspires me about rap is that it’s written in an almost poetic way. I just think it’s so cool.

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.

I always want to create and do things, or draw.

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.