A ‚scream‘ is always just that – a noise and not music.

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.

‚Evil men have no songs.‘ How is it that the Russians have songs?

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.

There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something we’d all love one another.

I want my fans to love themselves. It’s almost like I want to hypnotize them so when they hear my music they love themselves instantly.

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

The great moments of rock ‚n‘ roll were never off in some corner of the music world, in a self-constructed ghetto.

Music fills in for words a lot of the time when people don’t know what to say, and I think music can be more eloquent than words.

I think that, whatever happens, I’m just happy I’ve written those songs and I’ve made an album. That’s really big for me, and I’m proud of that.

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.

My mother knew how to read music and everything. But I just kinda learned off of records. And so, I was listening to records and I’d play ‚em over and over.

The prospect of music being detachable from time and place meant that one could start to think of music as a part of one’s furniture.

Lyrics are so important, but they’re really underrated.

Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.

If I heard someone else singing like me, I would buy it in a heartbeat.

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.

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.

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

Whatever I’m feeling, whatever I’m going through, whatever mood I’m in… If I’m feeling like dancing or clubbing, then it will be reflected in the music. If I’m feeling dark and vulnerable, then it will reflect in the music, too.

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

The thing that will never go away is that connection you make with a band or a song where you’re moved by the fact that it’s real people making music. You make that human connection with a song like ‚Let It Be‘ or ‚Long and Winding Road‘ or a song like ‚Bohemian Rhapsody‘ or ‚Roxanne,‘ any of those songs. They sound like people making music.

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.

It’s not essential for me to have a big debut week; it’s not essential for me to have big radio records.

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.

Cause when you’re sequencing a record, you want the listener to stick with it from beginning to end, and in order to do that, you really have to map out the journey from the first song to the last.

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

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.

Your personal history is a part of what happens with your hands and your head as you play music.

In the 1960s, people were trying to get away from the pop song format. Tracks were getting longer, or much, much shorter.

How about a little noise. How do you expect a man to putt?

Tupac, Biggie, Jay. Your usual suspects. These were the people that was played in my household.

Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something.

If you pour your life into songs, you want them to be heard. It’s a desire to communicate. A deep desire to communicate inspires songwriting.

If you ever see young artists, and they’re not sounding good, they sound good. They’re good singers. They wouldn’t be where they are if they didn’t sound good. It’s their nerves. Any time you see your favorite artist, and he’s or she’s screwing up or not hitting those notes, it’s not because she can’t hit it or she can’t sing; he or she is scared.

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.

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

I just kept touring and touring until it became second nature to go onstage, perform, and sing.

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

Everyone my age probably grew up listening to the ‚perreos‘ of Plan B.

I need drama in my life to keep making music.

A song is anything that can walk by itself.

Phish and Dave Matthews really know their audiences and really treat them well.

I never listen to the radio unless I rent a car.

I just wanted to be a songwriter. I did really not like the sound of my own voice.

I knew the second I finished the first record – ‚House Of Balloons‘ – and had all this material leftover that a trilogy would be best.

‚Victory‘ is like, you won, so the question is, what? What did you win? I think that the songs go into that. It’s just about reaching a place in myself.

Music, the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have hear below.

I’m no hillbilly singer.

I really like hip-hop and rap; that’s my main influence. I really wanna be more of a hip-hop artist.

I really am a fan of Ye’s music.

The jazz I love is sweet and pure with raw elements, which is exactly what the good hip-hop is doing now.

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.

Occasionally, I hanker for the time when I sold more records, but I don’t sit and drool about it. When I do look at early footage of Talking Heads, I realise I was just a wreck.

Rock ‚n‘ roll is ridiculous. It’s absurd. In the past, U2 was trying to duck that. Now we’re wrapping our arms around it and giving it a great big kiss.

Anybody that doesn’t like Cardi B a hater!

My music is a luxury.

The game is changing with songs like ‚Earned It‘ as opposed to it changing me.

Yes, the Bible should be taught in our schools because it is necessary to understand the Bible if we are to truly understand our own culture and how it came to be. The Bible has influenced every part of western culture from our art, music, and history, to our sense of fairness, charity, and business.

‚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.

Music belongs to the people. To no one else. To no one else.