My music is a luxury.

When I was born, that was the music my mother was listening to. Michael Jackson is a third parent to me.

You know, fame is a funny thing, man, especially, you know, actors, musicians, rappers, rock singers, it’s kind of a lifestyle and it’s easy to get caught up in it – you go to bars, you go to clubs, everyone’s doing a certain thing… It’s tough.

My grandfather once ventured upon publishing a volume of hymns. I never heard anyone speak in their favour or argue that they ought to have been sung in the congregation. In that volume, he promised a second if the first should prove acceptable. We forgive him the first collection because he did not inflict another.

‚Trilogy‘ was more of a claustrophobic body of work. Before it was released, I hadn’t left my city for 21 years, and I had never been on a plane, not once. I spent my entire life on one setting; that’s probably why pieces of the album feel like one long track, because that’s what my life felt like. It felt like one long song.

The lyrics are constructed as empirically as the music. I don’t set out to say anything very important.

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

So there’s nothing more provocative than taking a genre that everybody who’s cool hates – and then making it cool.

Honestly, I never really put the mic down.

The world, as a rule, does not live on beaches and in country clubs.

I’ve had grand pianos that are more expensive than, like, a year’s worth of rent.

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

Exercise is bunk. If you are healthy, you don’t need it: if you are sick you should not take it.

Before finding music, I didn’t have too many aspirations. I wanted to hang out, make a little money from whatever I had to do.

Luxury is the wolf at the door and its fangs are the vanities and conceits germinated by success. When an artist learns this, he knows where the danger is.

My mother is a singer, my sisters all sing, my uncles are incredible singers and guitar players, so it’s just kind of been like my habitat.

I’m such an emotional and sensitive person, so it only makes sense that my songs are as well.

I like to talk about my obsession with french fries because I don’t want people to think that ‚Let’s Move‘ is about complete, utter deprivation. It’s about moderation and real-life changes and ideas that really work for families.

People like music when they’re in love, but they don’t need it as much. You need music when you’re missing someone or you’re pining for someone or you’re forgetting someone or you’re trying to process what just happened.

One of my most popular songs, ‚Satellites,‘ I paid $300 for that beat on SoundClick.

Here comes 40. I’m feeling my age and I’ve ordered the Ferrari. I’m going to get the whole mid-life crisis package.

Football games are on TV, and it doesn’t affect stadium attendance at all. It’s the same with movies. People who really love movies and like to go out on a Saturday night will go to the movie theater.

I play the harmonica. The only way I can play is if I get my car going really fast, and stick it out the window.

There’s more good music being made now than ever before.

I’ve always been a little homemaker.

My goal was never to be the loudest or the craziest. It was to be the most entertaining.

I’m a day-to-day-type person.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the ambition of the great painters was to make paintings that were like music, which was then considered as the noblest art.

Choosing to be positive and having a grateful attitude is going to determine how you’re going to live your life.

Bravery never goes out of fashion.

Our lifestyle was not in any way a negative. That was not the problem. That is and will remain one of the wonderful opportunities we are able to give our children.

I’ve been thinking of humorous things since I was… I can’t remember when. All the way through elementary school, all the way through junior high, all the way through high school, through college and after college, I was thinking of the same kinds of things that I say in front of an audience now.

I’m an iPod person.

People should just buy a CD and rip it. You are legal then.

Music is the art of the prophets and the gift of God.

My favorite artists always documented emotion. Marvin Gaye and Al Green and Sade and Aaliyah.

I think my first album opened a lot of doors for me to push the freedom of speech to the limit.

I don’t know what’s better gettin‘ laid or gettin‘ paid.

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.

Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.

You have to be very rich or very poor to live without a trade.

To the audience, it’s like I’m changing the subject every five seconds, but to me, my show’s almost like a 90-minute song that I know exactly. I wrote every note, and I know exactly where everything is.

I’ve lived in a big showplace house, and I never want to live again in a house that overshadows me.

If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health.

Human beings need stories, and we’re looking for them in all kinds of places; whether it’s television, whether it’s comic books or movies, radio plays, whatever form, people are hungry for stories.

I’ve never wanted to use my age as a gimmick, as something that would get me ahead of other people. I’ve wanted the music to do that.

I’m not into albums that are meant to sound perfect.

It’s terrifying to play your favorite band’s song in front of your favorite band.

I’ve never written a political song. Songs can’t save the world. I’ve gone through all that.

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

In a magazine, one can get – from cover to cover – 15 to 20 different ideas about life and how to live it.

The average family spends 30 hours in front of a television, and they say they don’t have the time to have a balanced, integrated life.

Our growing softness, our increasing lack of physical fitness, is a menace to our security.

I didn’t want to play it boring and safe. I also didn’t want to innovate too much. Second albums, man, they’re even scarier than first ones.

Robyn is who I am. Rihanna – that’s an idea of who I am.

Anybody that doesn’t like Cardi B a hater!

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.‘

Every bad situation is a blues song waiting to happen.

You see the film, you might be entertained, and if it’s not a great film, it loses its power very quickly. I think even simply acceptable books stay with us a lot longer.

I don’t like the name, U2, actually.

A Khaled record is always the best.