I say, ‚Yeah, Taylor Swift.‘ I think she is a smart, beautiful girl. I think she’s making all the right moves. She’s got a good head on her shoulders. She’s surrounded with wonderful people. Her songs are great. She keeps herself anchored. She knows who she is, and she’s living and standing by that.

Women should be obscene and not heard.

I really like hip-hop and rap; that’s my main influence. I really wanna be more of a hip-hop artist.

I hate talking about music, to tell you the truth.

I’ve written all my songs on every single one of my records, and that’s what’s been fun about looking back.

The real truths of life are never entirely new to you or to anybody because there is a level deep down within you where you already know all the things, all those spiritual truths that you read or hear, and then recognize them. I say ‚recognize‘ because you’re not… it’s not new.

I’ve always loved black culture; I don’t know any other way to put it. Since I was a kid I loved music and early jazz, Sly and the Family Stone. I’m older – I’m in my early 50s – so you’ll have to excuse me. That was always very exciting to me to connect to the culture on that level.

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

I’ve made sure that in any situation and with any record label, I’m allowed to write my own music.

People should not make me out to be like Jesus; I don’t walk on water.

Never be lucid, never state, if you would be regarded great.

I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.

I would love to study guitar or trumpet.

I always have a full-length mirror next to the camera when I’m doing publicity stills. That way, I know how I look.

Don’t let your ego get too close to your position, so that if your position gets shot down, your ego doesn’t go with it.

There’s a lack of people in power that are motivated by the idea of helping people.

I don’t dabble and spend much mind or time dealing with, I don’t know, people’s perceptions of me. I truly don’t.

Nobody can tell me where I can and can’t go.

I have great respect for the past. If you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going. I have respect for the past, but I’m a person of the moment. I’m here, and I do my best to be completely centered at the place I’m at, then I go forward to the next place.

I’m honest enough to say I don’t know everything. You know, I don’t. I don’t understand all of God. I don’t understand, you know, some kind of why bad things happen.

Any teammate of mine that had a kid and a boy that was capable of playing baseball, I think I set a terrific example of ‚Don’t do this‘ and ‚Don’t do that.‘ And that’s one of the things that I’m most proud of.

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.

Music is like film to me.

Apple has given me a platform to spread music. They’re giving us Latinos a chance to shine.

The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.

The first two games for Churchill, I was so jittery that I didn’t know what to do. I was running more but didn’t know what to do. I’ve no bones accepting the fact that I didn’t know what was happening in the game.

One of the things I realized is that if you do not take control over your time and your life, other people will gobble it up. If you don’t prioritize yourself, you constantly start falling lower and lower on your list, your kids fall lower and lower on your list.

I think my worst problem is actually living in the moment and understanding everything that’s going on. I feel like I’m in my own bubble.

I don’t sing because I’m happy; I’m happy because I sing.

I just know that I’m a fan of all different kinds of genres. You’re supposed to be free doing music, and that’s how I feel.

There are those who believe Black people possess the secret of joy and that it is this that will sustain them through any spiritual or moral or physical devastation.

Music has the power to inspire the world.

Let us ask ourselves, ‚What kind of people do we think we are?‘ And let us answer, ‚Free people, worthy of freedom and determined not only to remain so but to help others gain their freedom as well.‘

I wanted to be in a punk band before I had even heard any punk music.

It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.

I was raised by strong women, and that DNA is in my daughter and wife.

How I love David Bowie.

You know, it’s not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself.

Growing up, my grandmother did not want worldly music in the house. Then when I went out to California, I started listening to Spanish music, mostly Mexican music. But were I in Egypt, I would listen to the music of the people, or if I was in Italy, I’d listen to Italian music.

Oh, you weak, beautiful people who give up with such grace. What you need is someone to take hold of you – gently, with love, and hand your life back to you.

My overall look on things is a lot more mature than it used to be.

I’m not suggesting people abandon musical instruments and start playing their cars and apartments, but I do think the reign of music as a commodity made only by professionals might be winding down.

You can’t really imagine music without technology.

Things that I felt absolutely sure of but a few years ago, I do not believe now. This thought makes me see more clearly how foolish it would be to expect all men to agree with me.

Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey ‚people.‘ People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war… Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of the rest.

It’s empowering to know I am doing something, I am taking a stand, I am disrupting.

The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me; my prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter.

Wagner manages to convey emotion with music better than anyone, before or since.

Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory.

Fans are my favorite thing in the world. I’ve never been the type of artist who has that line drawn between their friends and their fans. The line’s always been really blurred for me. I’ll hang out with them after the show. I’ll hang out with them before the show. If I see them in the mall, I’ll stand there and talk to them for 10 minutes.

Together with a culture of work, there must be a culture of leisure as gratification. To put it another way: people who work must take the time to relax, to be with their families, to enjoy themselves, read, listen to music, play a sport.

One man with courage is a majority.

Every day, my mom and I would watch a different Judy Garland VHS. I love how she tells a story when she sings. It was just about her voice and the words she was singing – no strings attached or silly hair or costumes, just a woman singing her heart out. I feel like that doesn’t happen that much anymore.

This above all; to thine own self be true.

Nothing feels better than going onstage and everybody is singing every word – and actually wanting to see you.

It’d be stupid for me to sit here and say that there aren’t kids who look up to me, but my responsibility is not to them. I’m not a baby sitter.

I don’t really get nervous that much, or if I do, only I know. It’s all inside me. I am good at hiding everything.

One advantage in keeping a diary is that you become aware with reassuring clarity of the changes which you constantly suffer.

I never listen to the radio unless I rent a car.

If you ever see young artists, and they’re not sounding good, they sound good. They’re good singers. They wouldn’t be where they are if they didn’t sound good. It’s their nerves. Any time you see your favorite artist, and he’s or she’s screwing up or not hitting those notes, it’s not because she can’t hit it or she can’t sing; he or she is scared.