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

A lot of times, you could play me just the laughs from my set, and I could tell you, from the laugh, what the joke was. Because they match.

Ninety percent of all music is always crap, and when too many people decide they’re going to have guitar bands, then ninety percent of them are going to be crap. It’s just a given law.

Now, we are selling over 5 million songs a day now. Isn’t that unbelievable? That’s 58 songs every second of every minute of every hour of every day.

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

I don’t ever want to come out with something safe and get away with, ‚It sounds good!‘ It’s got to be more than sounding good. The music I like are events.

Opera happens because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong.

Dropkick Murphys get me going, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana… plus, all the regular hip-hop stuff.

The thing that I fear discriminating against is humor and truth.

Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.

Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world.

Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?

Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.

I can’t make a song for a particular person or demographic. If I love it, I’m gonna do it. I have to perform it for the rest of my life. A song is like a tattoo – you can never get away from it.

If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank.

I sent out a tweet, ‚Dancing with the Stars‘ should stop the jibber jabber. They shouldn’t make the departure of a dancer so tear jerky because nobody’s going to war.

Music has to be sort of ignorable sometimes.

If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: ‚President Can’t Swim.‘

Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music.

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.

If you can’t make it better, you can laugh at it.

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.

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

Someone once threw me a small, brown, hairy kiwi fruit, and I threw a wastebasket over it until it was dead.

Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes.

Since childhood, I’ve been a clown. I’ve always liked being very funny or trying to make people laugh. It’s my original self.

One of the powerful temptations is that of the cinema palace. The cinema has undoubtedly an enormous attraction for boys, and people are constantly cudgelling their brains how to stop it. But it is one of those things which would be very difficult to stop even if it were altogether desirable.

If you spend your life competing with business men, what do you have? A bank account and ulcers!

There is a rumour going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist.

People haven’t always been there for me, but music always has.

And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.

If it’s all instruction, you get annoyed with it and bored, and you stop reading. If it’s all entertainment, you read it quite quickly, your heart going pitty-pat, pitty-pat. But when you finish, that’s it. You’re not going to think about it much afterward, apart from the odd nightmare. You’re not going to read that book again.

I liberate minds with my music. That’s more important than liberating a few people from apartheid or whatever.

Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn’t!

I’m a songwriter. Everything affects me.

I’ve always tended to write songs prolifically.

SNL is a home. You’ve got all of your brothers and sisters there, and it’s a great time.

I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.

Is it weird in here, or is it just me?

I started playing violin in the 5th grade. They had a program in school where you could get out of class to go play instruments. So I raised my hand, left out of class, me and a bunch of my homeboys, just to get out of class for that day. They asked what instrument you wanted to play and I picked the violin.

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.

If people take anything from my music, it should be motivation to know that anything is possible as long as you keep working at it and don’t back down.

If it’s illegal to rock and roll, throw my ass in jail!

I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol.

When you’re coming up with new material, it’s not always gonna be good. The only way to learn is for it not to get a laugh, so you can adjust it and come back the next day to see if it’s working right. Next time, you might get a different laugh. You’re constantly rebuilding.

A song is anything that can walk by itself.

‚The Simpsons‘ appearances were great fun. But I don’t take them too seriously. I think ‚The Simpsons‘ have treated my disability responsibly.

Factoring in millions of people when I’m writing a song is not a good idea. I don’t ever do it.

Music is the melody whose text is the world.

I wanted to drop three albums in a year because no one had done it. It was bold, unheard of.

While musical experts of the world focus on what choir members can do, I would like to focus on what choir members can be.

I think that, ah, I’m a very goofy sort of person in many ways.

Whenever I want to laugh, I read a wonderful book, ‚Children’s Letters to God.‘ You can open it anywhere. One I read recently said, ‚Dear God, thank you for the baby brother, but what I prayed for was a puppy.‘

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

The overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed of two great qualities a sense of humor and a sense of proportion.

Most of the stuff I do on the show comes out of me just trying to make my friends laugh.

I like being able to be on the inside of music, rather than on the outside listening to it.

My style influences my music and everything around me.

The effect of music on fashion has been immense, especially hip-hop and urban music.

The fame isn’t important to me. It’s a blessing to have. Having so many people that support me, that love me and listen to my music, is beautiful.

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.