I collect records. And cats. I don’t have any cats right now. But if I’m taking a walk and I see a cat, I’m happy.

If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.

Saints can be happy under every circumstance.

Perhaps when music has been shouting for so long, a quieter voice seems attractive.

Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries.

I write my own songs. I made my own videos. I pick my producers. Nothing goes out without my permission. It’s all authentic.

In Hawaii, some of the biggest radio stations are reggae. The local bands are heavily influenced by Bob Marley.

Happiness doesn’t depend on any external conditions, it is governed by our mental attitude.

This thing that I do with caring about the message in my music, it’s not separate from my work as a commercial artist; they’re totally one and the same. I’m always going to be thinking about what my voice means.

It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.

Christmas time! That man must be a misanthrope indeed, in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused – in whose mind some pleasant associations are not awakened – by the recurrence of Christmas.

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

Just do some kind of workout. Doesn’t matter if it’s going for a walk around the block, going for a jog, doing some calisthenics, lifting weights, going to a pool and swimming – you name it. But do something that gets your blood flowing and gets your mind in the game.

There is something curiously boring about somebody else’s happiness.

The purpose of our lives is to be happy.

I’m really happy and had such an amazing time performing at Super Bowl – wish I could relive it all over again.

Music, even with these dial-up connections you have to the Internet, is very practical to download.

I think if I did something in the pop world right now, it would be for Rihanna. I’d love to do something production wise for her.

I think I can keep a rhythm to a beat, but there are quite a few people who would argue with me.

The music we do is for people to enjoy, dance and sing to it. Dreamers – keep on dreaming and keep working hard to achieve your goals. There are many difficulties, but what matters is to stay focused and have perseverance.

I don’t know if I ever feel totally great about a record when I put it out. With every record that I put out, someone has literally got to come pry it from me because when I listen to my own music, I just hear flaws in it.

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

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.

My heart, which is so full to overflowing, has often been solaced and refreshed by music when sick and weary.

I think it’s really cool when artists have song titles or album names that are a really conversational sentence.

You can write a song about being in love with someone, but you don’t have to be in love with anyone.

If we chew every morsel of our food, in that way we become grateful, and when you are grateful, you are happy.

It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come.

Life is a song to me.

I never thought, in my lifetime, that you’d be able to watch movies, read books and listen to music from a phone, but I guess the technology of tomorrow is here today.

My dad was into the 1950s doo-wop era. If you look at those groups, or at James Brown, Jackie Wilson and the Temptations in the 1960s, you’ll see you had to be sharp onstage.

I hate the idea of genres.

I enjoy singing my songs in front of people. I enjoy being involved in making the artwork for albums and stupid stuff like that.

From the beginning of my rap career, since I was seen and heard, I always had a store.

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.

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.

The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it’s not going to happen. I’m fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years.

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

I’m wallowing in the whole idea of just being a guy out there with a band, with songs. It’s a real enjoyment.

Obviously this song is an achievement for me in my career, but what makes me really feel good is to make Latinos feel proud. To provoke that pride that a pop figure and someone so big in music globally like Drake would sing with me completely in Spanish and create this hit ‚MIA.‘ That’s the best part of it.

I used to think that, given enough goodwill, anybody would be able to ‚get‘ any music, no matter how distant the culture from which it came. And then I heard Chinese opera.

I joyfully hasten to meet death. If it come before I have had opportunity to develop all my artistic faculties, it will come, my hard fate notwithstanding, too soon, and I should probably wish it later – yet even then I shall be happy, for will it not deliver me from a state of endless suffering?

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.

I like to make people feel happy and superior in their reaction towards my appearance.

A good song never gets old.

Making your dad happy is – especially for an Italian Catholic girl, I’ll tell you – it feels really good.

If it’s illegal to rock and roll, throw my ass in jail!

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.

Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.

When ‚Paul’s Boutique‘ came out, I was one of the fans that didn’t get it.

Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.

I get a more passionate delivery when I just go in the booth and let the music talk.

Let a man get up and say, Behold, this is the truth, and instantly I perceive a sandy cat filching a piece of fish in the background. Look, you have forgotten the cat, I say.

This is the thing about hip-hop music and where people get it most misconstrued: It’s all hip-hop. You can’t say that just what I do is hip-hop, because hip-hop is all energies. James Brown can get on the track and mumble all day. But guess what? You felt his soul on those records.

But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes.

Being an artist doesn’t just mean you have a song. That doesn’t make you an artist. The word ‚artist‘ means so many different things, and I feel like to be a real one, you really have to do it all. The people that I think of as artists – Tyler the Creator, Childish Gambino, Kanye West – are doing the most.

I was at a New Year’s Eve party, and someone asked me how was my year, and I said, ‚I honestly think 2011 was the best year of my entire life,‘ and I actually meant it.

Happiness is a hard master, particularly other people’s happiness.

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

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.

What I’m hoping is that every album I’m going to do will give my audience something different, and that they’ll grow as I do.