A chorus is not easy.

I’ve always loved Def Leppard, ever since I was little.

Music has the power to inspire the world.

All I have to say is basically if performing, singing, acting, and dancing is what you want to do, then you just have to do it – no matter where it is.

One of the benefits of playing to small audiences in small clubs for a few years is that you’re allowed to fail.

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.

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

I would love to study guitar or trumpet.

The whole slacker generation totally didn’t apply to us musically.

It’s what counts, isn’t it, on the Sunday, rather than pre-season testing. If you lock up, you do a little mistake, it’s nothing, but if you do it on Sunday, you lose a place or you have to box for a flat spot or something like that. It’s a much bigger problem.

From the time that ‚Nevermind‘ came out in September of 1991 to the time that Nirvana was over, it was really just a few years, and a lot happened in those few years.

When you listen to Ray Charles, there’s never any doubt whose voice that is.

While we look to the dramatist to give romance to realism, we ask of the actor to give realism to romance.

I’ve made sure that in any situation and with any record label, I’m allowed to write my own music.

I rate Morrissey as one of the best lyricists in Britain. For me, he’s up there with Bryan Ferry.

I’ve got no need to prove to myself that I can do Shakespeare. I’ve done it.

The thing about hip-hop today is it’s smart, it’s insightful. The way they can communicate a complex message in a very short space is remarkable.

I know I’m talented, but I wasn’t put here to sing. I was put here to be a wife and a mom and look after my family. I love what I do, but it’s not where it begins and ends.

Taylor Swift’s audience can listen to me, but so can the street kids. I want to touch it all.

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

At first, I wasn’t really keen on the idea of me being on stage having to sing in front of people.

Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.

I don’t live for the accolades. I’m more so about the music. Making it, and putting it out. Those are the two best feelings.

You listen to Charlie Parker or John Coltrane before they found their voice, they sounded different. And when you listen to them after they found their voice on their instruments, they sound more confident and in control. Artists have that, too.

I wanted to be famous for my music and my talent, and I always wished I could cut it out when I left the stage.

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.

If I’m gonna write songs about my exes, they can write songs about me. That’s how it works.

I love Chris Brown. He’s a superstar. He’s one of the best singers out there.

Lots of songs aren’t even from my experiences, but they’re about accepting… the dark things about yourself.

If you watch any good player, they’re using different parts of their body and working with instruments that respond to those movements. They’re moving in many dimensions at once.

When it comes down to it, glam rock was all very amusing. At the time, it was funny, then a few years later it became sort of serious-looking and a bit foreboding.

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

I believe in singing.

My whole life is a theater piece.

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.

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.

When I was a teenager, my biggest lessons came from Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, George Strait, Rascal Flatts and Brad Paisley. I learned so much from opening up for those artists, and it also taught me how to treat your opening acts and make them feel like they’re part of a family, not just a tour.

I’m not a supermodel. That’s not what I do. What I do is music. I want my fans to feel the way I do, to know what they have to offer is just as important, more important, than what’s happening on the outside.

I’ve got my Grammys on top of my piano and I look at them when I play.

Actors know what actors are insecure about – and they’re all insecure.

I’m no hillbilly singer.

I do admire Judi Dench and Sir Ian McKellen, but I’m a philistine. I like the good life too much; I’m not good at going on stage night after night and on wet Wednesday afternoons.

The first four and a half years was me in the studio every day, writing songs for other people. I had jobs, too – eleven jobs. I worked at Kinko’s, Fatburger, Subway – I was a sandwich artist – and I was a claims processor at Allstate Insurance.

I won’t be satisfied until people want to hear me sing without looking at me. Of course, that doesn’t mean I want them to stop looking.

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

Music will never go away, and I will never stop making music; it’s just what capacity or what arena you decide to do it.

I don’t sing because I’m happy; I’m happy because I sing.

Anyone who is practicing understanding and compassion can exemplify true power. Anyone can be a Buddha.

You always want to quit while you are ahead. You don’t want to be like a fighter who stays too long in the ring until you’re not performing at your best.

I love movement. I love moshing.

‚Two Voices,‘ from my album with Peter Schwalm, is an intact dream-poem. I awoke one night with an image of a piece of paper and all the words of the poem written on it, so I just blundered down to the kitchen table and ‚copied it out.‘

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

There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It’s always been my way of expressing what, for me, is inexpressible by any other means.

I could sing you a thousand and one doo-wop songs. I love the simplicity in that music. It’s not super-poetic, it’s just from the heart.

My fans don’t feel like I hold anything back from them. They know whatever I’m going through now, they’ll hear about it on a record someday. They’ll hear the real story. There’s a little bit of lag time. It’s not as instant as going on a gossip blog. But it’s much more accurate.

It’s a privilege to serve the poor, to be servants of noble Africans, but I better belong in the rehearsal room or in the studio with my band. That’s where I want to be and I still wake up in the morning with melodies in my head.

It confuses me and disappoints me when somebody says, ‚What does he do? What does he do?‘ My records are some of the biggest anthems ever. What do you think, they magically just appear? Obama walked out to my record.

Who’s to say what’s a good voice and not a good voice?

God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.

You have to be a bastard to make it, and that’s a fact. And the Beatles are the biggest bastards on earth.

All of my music is honest.