I booked my first studio at like 12 or 13. Somewhere in that season of my life, singing along with the radio became me wanting to be on radio, you know. And writing Langston Hughes replica poems became me wanting to write like Stevie Wonder.

I don’t know how many good books I still have in me; I hope there are another four or five.

I ain’t here to argue about his facial features. Or here to convert atheists into believers. I’m just trying to say the way school need teachers the way Kathie Lee needed Regis that’s the way yall need Jesus.

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.

My mother was and will always remain my greatest hero.

When I got to New York City when I was 18, I started playing in clubs in Brooklyn – I have good friends and devoted fans on the underground scene, but we were playing for each other at that point – and that was it.

God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us, on this side of the grave.

Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.

The spirit is there in every boy; it has to be discovered and brought to light.

I think Mozart’s operas ‚The Marriage of Figaro‘ and ‚Don Giovanni‘ are the two most perfect ever written. The music is magical.

Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.

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.

Compton got such a legacy in hip-hop.

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.

If you pour your life into songs, you want them to be heard. It’s a desire to communicate. A deep desire to communicate inspires songwriting.

I knew from the age of 16 that I wanted to be a writer because I just didn’t think I could do anything else. So I read and read and wrote short stories and dreamed of escape.

If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.

Everything rises and falls on leadership.

There’s poetry in being the band that can sell out Wembley but also makes a record in a garage. I don’t like doing what people expect me to do.

Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world.

Chicago gave me more music than any other city in America.

Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them.

To live without Hope is to Cease to live.

In Puerto Rico we dance to everything.

He who has courage and faith will never perish in misery!

Music, the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have hear below.

O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.

Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervor.

I used to consider the listener. But now I’m in a space where, if I’m not inspired, I can’t really do the music. I can’t feel it.

I grew up on the Beatles; I love Linkin Park and Green Day. I heard hip-hop for the first time at 11 and realized what I was missing.

Every artist preserves deep within him a single source from which, throughout his lifetime, he draws what he is, and what he says. When the source dries up, the work withers and crumbles.

Most of those melodies are me trying to find out what notes fit, and then hitting ones that don’t fit in a very interesting way.

I’m inspired by people who keep on rolling, no matter their age.

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.

Ideas can be life-changing. Sometimes all you need to open the door is just one more good idea.

I find that when I get on stage now, I don’t want to perform a lot of my songs because they don’t feel like me. So I want to make songs that are timeless.

I learned from the guys before me – Bill Cosby, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Richard Pryor, just to name a few. These are guys that let it all hang out. What they lived is what they took to the stage.

We represent a hustler. I think we represent inspiration. I think we represent, you know, staying down. I think we represent building yourself up from the bootstraps.

I’d love to do a musical. I’ve been known to have a good step or two. I’m half Samoan, you know, and part of our culture is singing and dancing daily.

And later, if I ever felt that I was getting swept away by the craziness of being in a band, well, I’d go back to Virginia.

There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.

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

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

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

I’m a painter in sound.

When people are around us, they should leave better off than they were previously. Rather than feeling discouraged or defeated, people should feel challenged and inspired after spending any time with you and me.

Now, we are selling over 5 million songs a day now. Isn’t that unbelievable? That’s 58 songs every second of every minute of every hour of every day.

Doo-wop is special music to me because it’s so straightforward and melody-driven and captures emotions.

I don’t think of Kurt as ‚Kurt Cobain from Nirvana‘. I think of him as ‚Kurt‘. It’s something that comes back all the time. Almost every day.

I’m trying to throw a big broad net to try to get people interested in God and believe that He’s for them and has a purpose.

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.

Because of your smile, you make life more beautiful.

When you are organizing a group of people, the first thing that we do is we talk about the history of what other people have been able to accomplish – people that look like them, workers like them, ordinary people, working people – and we give them the list: these are people like yourself; this is what they were able to do in their community.

People tried to change my concept of what music is. That music is work, but it’s not like that.

I like nonsense; it wakes up the brain cells.

You can’t die with an unfinished book.

In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing.

My heroes are the ones who survived doing it wrong, who made mistakes, but recovered from them.

Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.