‚In Utero‘ was the first time I’d made an album that reached into the dark side. I remember the conflict and the uncertainty. I remember all those things when I hear ‚Pennyroyal Tea.‘

I try to sprinkle a little gems and jewels in the music that people could use in their own life.

I accept chaos, I’m not sure whether it accepts me.

In memory everything seems to happen to music.

The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.

The truth of the matter is that Iran is a cancer.

There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.

Songs don’t have to be about going out on Saturday night and having a good rink-up and driving home and crashing cars. A lot of what I’ve done is about alienation… about where you fit in society.

From the time that ‚Nevermind‘ came out in September of 1991 to the time that Nirvana was over, it was really just a few years, and a lot happened in those few years.

The Heads were the only band on that scene that had a groove.

You can not divorce religious belief and public service. I’ve never detected any conflict between God’s will and my political duty. If you violate one, you violate the other.

Mine is only one of the millions of hearts broken over the death of Whitney Houston, I will always be grateful and in awe of the wonderful performance she did on my song, and I can truly say from the bottom of my heart, ‚Whitney, I will always love you. You will be missed.‘

The songs are my lexicon. I believe the songs.

It’s easier to aim to please and say what others want to hear than to form an opinion and fight for it, even if it means taking a risk or losing your job.

I want to marry Arline because I love her – which means I want to take care of her. That is all there is to it. I want to take care of her. I am anxious for the responsibilities and uncertainties of taking care of the girl I love.

I realized the power of hip-hop. I realized how influential this music and this culture are.

I really love the culture of hip-hop.

‚Thursday‘ is a conceptual album. Whatever that situation was, I spent the whole album focusing on that situation.

Dropkick Murphys get me going, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana… plus, all the regular hip-hop stuff.

My songs are the door to every dream I’ve ever had and every success I’ve ever achieved.

The truth of it is that every singer out there with songs on the radio is raising the next generation, so make your words count.

Environment is very important to me. Sometimes I have to perform during the day for festivals, and my music does not work in the daytime. It is nighttime music.

We have always said that in our war with the Arabs we had a secret weapon – no alternative.

All my records and videos were groundbreaking.

Though men determine, the gods doo dispose: and oft times many things fall out betweene the cup and the lip.

If tomorrow I want to release a rock album or I want to release a bachata album, nobody can tell me anything – why can’t I?

My whole life and my whole career, even through my music, I tell people: let’s unify; let’s show more love.

My purpose is to make exciting music, and I feel like I’ll be doing that for the rest of my life, so there’s no pressure.

When I listen to music these days, and I hear Pro Tools and drums that sound like a machine – it kinda sucks the life out of music.

The prospect of music being detachable from time and place meant that one could start to think of music as a part of one’s furniture.

I’m a spokesman for myself. It just so happens that there’s a bunch of people that are concerned with what I have to say. I find that frightening at times because I’m just as confused as most people. I don’t have the answers for anything.

Speaking purely from a musical standpoint, I think I am a great performer.

No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.

When I’m writing a record, I kind of don’t listen to much music. Just because I want to be inspired solely on the emotion; just based on how it feels.

Writing for other artists helped me figure out that magic you have to capture to make everyone connect with a song.

I don’t think I’d ever apologise for music I make, no.

You gotta make sure the listener is listening to you, so if you put it into a song, often times, if the song is striking enough, then you can really deliver the story most effectively while keeping the ear of the listener the whole time.

The colored folks been singing it and playing it just like I’m doin‘ now, man, for more years than I know. I got it from them.

I don’t listen to the radio very much, but that could be because I don’t have a car.

War is what happens when language fails.

Music comes to me more readily than words.

We all recognize that the Mid-east is dissolving into crises, and we know terrorism did not start with 9-11.

We moved into the back, made it into a little 50s sitting room and started to sell the records. We had an immediate success. For one thing, these Teddy Boys were thrilled to buy the records.

Open Graph is a language for structuring content and sharing that goes on in other apps, and we’re continuing to build it out longer term. But we found we need to build more specific experiences around categories like music or movies. Where we’ve taken the time to build those specific experiences, stuff has gone quite well.

I didn’t think it was special to be able to sing.

I don’t have time to stand around and listen to an 11-minute song.

Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.

Occasionally, I hanker for the time when I sold more records, but I don’t sit and drool about it. When I do look at early footage of Talking Heads, I realise I was just a wreck.

Certain though I am – and ever more certain – that I must press on in life as though Christ awaited me at the term of the universe, at the same time I feel no special assurance of the existence of Christ. Believing is not seeing. As much as anyone, I imagine, I walk in the shadows of faith.

Some people focus more on sonics. Some people focus more on story. I focus on both sonics and story, but music sometimes, just music itself, can turn into more of a maths problem. I guess everything in life is a math problem, but it can be more about an empirical route to getting the symmetry that you want, and this vibe, sonically.

Your personal history is a part of what happens with your hands and your head as you play music.

Some scientists believe climate change is the cause of unprecedented melting of the North Pole, and that effects these very uncertain weather patterns. I think we should listen to those scientists and experts.

I used to love Kurt Cobain, when he was telling people we’re a pop band. People would laugh, they thought of it as good old ironic Kurt. But he wasn’t being ironic.

I wanted to get rid of the element that had been considered essential in pop music: the voice.

I’ve got a feeling that music might not be the most interesting place to be in the world of things.

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

When I’m 40 and nobody wants to see me in a sparkly dress anymore, I’ll be like: ‚Cool, I’ll just go in the studio and write songs for kids.‘

When I listen to a song, I don’t say, ‚Oh my gosh, that vocal line she sang was the best thing I ever heard.‘ I’m thinking, ‚That lyric just moves me. That lyric just said what I feel better than I could say it myself.‘

There’s something about pulling out a real tape from a shelf and looking at it and knowing that ‚Everlong‘ is on it, or ‚Best of You‘ is on it, and it’s really special.

My mother knew how to read music and everything. But I just kinda learned off of records. And so, I was listening to records and I’d play ‚em over and over.