For the chorus of ‚Secrets,‘ we used The Romantics‘ ‚Talking in Your Sleep‘ and ‚Pale Shelter‘ by Tears for Fears. It’s like hip-hop: just grab it.

Anybody with a sense of humor is going to put on my album and laugh from beginning to end.

I’d love to do a duet, always wanted to work with Madonna, but she never asked.

I taught myself to play the guitar by listening to Paul Simon records, working it out note by note. He is an incredibly intelligent musician. He’s not someone who has a natural outpouring of melody like McCartney or Dylan, who are just terribly prolific with musical ideas.

For some reason, I’m really comfortable talking about my personal life in songs.

If I’m inspired to make a certain kind of song, I’m going to make that kind of song, no matter if it’s what they know me as or think I am.

I never went to rock concerts when I was a kid. I didn’t see any rock & roll bands.

I don’t think a song should be put in a category.

I don’t like the name, U2, actually.

I’ve been on tour since I was 16, and I always do meet-and-greets before and after shows, so you kind of build these friendships with people. I have girls come up to me and tell me exactly what’s going on in their love lives.

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.

My music is a luxury.

Hip-hop is ever changing but you’ll always have the pack. And you’ll always have those people who are separated from the pack.

I love Wiz Khalifa.

My only scheme was to be a rapper.

When I listen to ‚Nevermind,‘ I hate the production, but there’s something about it that almost makes me cry at times.

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

It was that famous joke: What’s the last thing the drummer said before he got kicked out of the band? ‚Hey, I wrote a song.‘

I didn’t have nothin‘ going for me… school, home… until I found something I loved, which was music, and that changed everything.

If I was just a fan of music, I would think that I was the number one artist in the world.

Five or six songs leaked from the original version of ‚Encore.‘ So I had to go in and make new songs to replace them.

You know, there are artists who are 35 and up that still make rap and that still works for them. I don’t know if I want to be that guy.

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.

When I was performing the songs on ‚Kiss Land,‘ it was a great singalong. But there were moments where I realized some parts were catchier than the others. There’s maybe two choruses on all of ‚Kiss Land.‘

The age of a woman doesn’t mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.

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.

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

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

What I’ve discovered is that in art, as in music, there’s a lot of truth-and then there’s a lie. The artist is essentially creating his work to make this lie a truth, but he slides it in amongst all the others. The tiny little lie is the moment I live for, my moment. It’s the moment that the audience falls in love.

I think that by staying true to myself and making music from my heart, the blessings come.

When I put out ‚Video Games‘ in May 2011, it was a 5:25-minute love song; I was surprised when a lot of people said they were listening to it. I was surprised when it went to the radio, without me even knowing how something like that even happens!

There’s a reason why the Foo Fighters don’t blast out Nirvana songs every night: because we have a lot of respect for them. You know, that’s hallowed ground. We have to be careful. We have to tread lightly. We have talked about it before, but the opportunity hasn’t really come up, or it just hasn’t felt right.

It’s not true I had nothing on, I had the radio on.

It’s about the stories. If I write 14 stories that I love, then the next step is to get the environment of music around it to best envelop the story, and all kinds of sonic goodness – sonic goodies.

My music will go on forever. Maybe it’s a fool say that, but when me know facts me can say facts. My music will go on forever.

But, I’ve always loved John Mayer and I think T-Pain is brilliant.

I wish I could play bass like Larry Graham or Bootsy Collins. My God, I’d give up just about everything else for that.

Doing music to pay bills is an uncomfortable situation. I never wanted to be in that situation.

I could imagine at a certain age, when I have no vocal cords left, that I would find a young man who could sing my parts for me. But I don’t see why I would stop.

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

All my records and videos were groundbreaking.

Sometimes you stumble across a few chords that put you in a reflective place.

Hell is full of musical amateurs.

I’ve had mixtapes that have been better than albums I’ve heard from other artists. I take my time; I put my heart into it.

Look at Pusha-T. He makes a certain type of rap music. ‚Daytona‘ is that on the highest level.

Man, that record came out and was real big in Memphis. They started playing it, and it got real big. Don’t know why-the lyrics had no meaning.

I learned how important it is to entertain people and give them a reason to come and watch you play.

We don’t make music – it makes us.

The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.

In 7th grade, I believe, I wrote my first rap song. It was about everything I was seeing, everything that was going on around me.

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.

If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.

I don’t just listen to rap.

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

Rhythm is something you either have or don’t have, but when you have it, you have it all over.

Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

I’m personally more struck by visual things more than musical.

I own a ’66 Jaguar. That’s the guitar I polish, and baby – I refuse to let anyone touch it when I jump into the crowd.

It was always a plan that we were going to have a retail side with what were doing musically, like an Apple store or Nike Town. I wanted something where you can come get everything – ‚Marathon‘ or ‚All Money‘ or ‚Crenshaw‘ – and make it like an experience. Especially with what Crenshaw and Slauson meant to my story.

When I won the first Grammy, there was no other feeling like that feeling. It just made me feel like I came so far, like that was just a dream a few years before that, and then it was happening right then.

If one plays good music, people don’t listen and if one plays bad music people don’t talk.