It is one thing to record an album but it’s a huge difference when people play it and listen to it and embrace it the way that I do. It has always been my dream to get my music out to the world and have people hear it.

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

I’ve been asking myself: ‚Why put together these things – CDs, albums?‘ The answer I came up with is, well, sometimes it’s artistically viable. It’s not just a random collection of songs. Sometimes the songs have a common thread, even if it’s not obvious or even conscious on the artists‘ part.

Having listened to great songwriters like James Taylor and Carole King, I felt there was nothing new that was coming out that really represented me and the way I felt. So I started writing my own stuff.

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

I’ve never thought about songwriting as a weapon. I’ve only thought about it as a way to help me get through love and loss and sadness and loneliness and growing up.

I love being a part of the country-music community.

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

The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

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

If you check your ego at the door when it comes to comedy, you’ve got a pretty good shot at making a great movie that you can commit yourself to, you can jump off the proverbial cliff with, and have a great time, and the audiences respond to that.

Music has an intrinsic meaning, which has always been mysterious to me.

You see, idealism detached from action is just a dream. But idealism allied with pragmatism, with rolling up your sleeves and making the world bend a bit, is very exciting. It’s very real. It’s very strong.

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

A letdown is worth a few songs. A heartbreak is worth a few albums.

I play piano and ukulele, and I taught myself those things just because I wanted to play them.

I try to devote my afternoons to making music in my home studio, but it’s a lot more fun hanging out with musicians and friends, and trying subtly to influence a band than making your own stuff.

My music seems to have a bigger mission than I have, which is very soothing but also very strange because people see more in me than I see, which can be terrifying.

I never wanted to write the sort of song that said, ‚Look at how abnormal and crazy and out there I am, man!‘

I wanted to prove the sustaining power of music.

So there’s no guarantee if you like the music you will empathize with the culture and the people who made it. It doesn’t necessarily happen. I think it can, but it doesn’t necessarily happen. Which is kind of a shame.

Writing means sharing. It’s part of the human condition to want to share things – thoughts, ideas, opinions.

My dream is to be World Lightweight Champion in the UFC. Have more money than I know what to do with. And have a great life for my kids, grandkids, and everyone in my family.

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

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

If you want to appeal to everyone, you can’t do a world tour and expect black people to show up at every date – when you’re in Australia, when you’re in Dubai, when you’re in Indonesia.

Music is something no one can control.

I used to – my earliest memory of waking up with a melody in my head was, you know, 8, 9, 10. I’ve always heard kind of melodies in my head.

I don’t need therapy. I’m not going to see a therapist; comedy acts as my therapy. I put my problems out there. I talk about them. I talk about everything before anybody has a chance.

That thing about being an icon, the fifth Beatle, I just found it so freaky.

John Lennon was definitely my favorite Beatle, hands down.

A record deal doesn’t make you an artist; you make yourself an artist.

I wanted to be Gerry Mulligan, only, see, I didn’t have any kind of technique. So I thought, well, baritone sax is kind of easier; I can manage that – except I couldn’t afford a baritone, so I bought an alto, which was the same fingering.

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.

He who obtains has little. He who scatters has much.

I still wanna rap better than everybody else, and I wanna say important things.

I never listen to ‚Nevermind.‘ I haven’t listened to it since we put it out. That says something.

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.

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.‘

Instruments sound interesting, not because of their sound, but because of the relationship a player has with them. Instrumentalists build a rapport with their instruments, which is what you like and respond to.

Music for me, it demands full concentration.

I couldn’t have written things like ‚Low‘ and ‚Heroes,‘ those particular albums, if it hadn’t have been for Berlin and the kind of atmosphere I felt there.

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.

Man, I’m the No. 1 living and breathing rock star. I am Axl Rose; I am Jim Morrison; I am Jimi Hendrix.

Music is always a commentary on society.

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

Advertising works most effectively when it’s in line with what people are already trying to do. And people are trying to communicate in a certain way on Facebook – they share information with their friends, they learn about what their friends are doing – so there’s really a whole new opportunity for a new type of advertising model within that.

There were people who incorporated melody before me, but I would deem myself the first person to successfully rap and sing.

I don’t really believe in the type of pressure that people are wanting to put on the type of music that I make.

I don’t like headphones very much, and I rarely listen to music on headphones.

I feel that when you care about your music, taking risks is something you should do to keep things exciting.

There are many people in South Africa who are rich and who can share those riches with those not so fortunate who have not been able to conquer poverty.

I wish myself to be a prop, if anything, for my songs. I want to be the vehicle for my songs. I would like to colour the material with as much visual expression as is necessary for that song.

Any artist, the work you do, if it’s a painting or if it’s a performance, you hope it translates to a common denominator with the people that they see something in their own life in there. Or they see something in somebody else’s life. That’s what’s fun about sharing art.

I just wanted to be a composer; I became an actor by default, really. I got a scholarship to a college of music and drama, hoping to take a scholarship in music. But I ended up as an acting student, so I’ve stuck with that for the last 50-odd years.

I got a chain letter by fax. It’s very simple. You just fax a dollar bill to everybody on the list.

People – especially white people – they want me to be a role model just because of the life I lead. The things I say in my songs, they expect it of me.

On Saturday afternoons when all the things are done in the house and there’s no real work to be done, I play Bach and Chopin and turn it up real loudly and get a good bottle of chardonnay and sit out on my deck and look out at the garden.

I always felt like there was a certain standard of music that I had to do from the beginning, even when I didn’t have the recognition that I have now.

When I was in high school, there were these British blues-rock-type bands with really good guitar players that would jam on one song for half an hour. And as much as I was amazed by some of those guitar players, seeing them prompted me to make a note that that’s not something I could do.

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.