Anything that encourages people to pick up an instrument and play, I’m fully behind.

There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.

You have to dream intentionally. Most people dream a dream when they are asleep. But to be a writer, you have to dream while you are awake, intentionally.

Give a boy address and accomplishments and you give him the mastery of palaces and fortunes where he goes.

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

When I do listen to music, I’m more prone to listen to the people I’ve always listened to: George Jones, Otis Redding, Alison Krauss and Emmylou Harris.

I pay attention to lyrics and I know what rap fans care about. I try to write for the average listener and I’m conscious of the mainstream without selling out.

Music from my fourth year began to be the first of my youthful occupations. Thus early acquainted with the gracious muse who tuned my soul to pure harmonies, I became fond of her, and, as it often seemed to me, she of me.

Whether you come from a council estate or a country estate, your success will be determined by your own confidence and fortitude.

I don’t like to feel like I’m in a club when I’m in my car and I turn on the radio. Anything that ceases to be a song and just sounds like house music kind of stresses me out.

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.

There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.

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

Music is one of the most powerful things the world has to offer. No matter what race or religion or nationality or sexual orientation or gender that you are, it has the power to unite us.

To live without Hope is to Cease to live.

And you find as a writer there are certain spots on the planet where you write better than others, and I believe in that. And New Orleans is one of them.

I explain the law of compensation like this: ‚Returns are minimal in spite of massive effort at the start, yet returns can be massive with minimal effort over time.

As a father, I always want my son to be perfect. When he was young, I tried to train him in martial arts, but he said, ‚I don’t want to become like Bruce Lee’s son, with everybody telling me how good my father was.‘ I just think my son is too lazy.

In order to carry a positive action we must develop here a positive vision.

Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.

Whatever you want to do, do with full passion and work really hard towards it. Don’t look anywhere else. There will be a few distractions, but if you can be true to yourself, you will be successful for sure.

One today is worth two tomorrows.

For novelists or musicians, if they really want to create something, they need to go downstairs and find a passage to get into the second basement. What I want to do is go down there, but still stay sane.

My dad always said, ‚Champ, the measure of a man is not how often he is knocked down, but how quickly he gets up.‘

Every action needs to be prompted by a motive.

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

Music in itself carries a whole set of messages which are very, very rich and complex, and the words either serve to exclude certain ones or point up certain others.

Marriage is a series of desperate arguments people feel passionately about.

If your only goal is to become rich, you will never achieve it.

I went through all the musicians in my life who I admire as bright, intelligent, virtuosic players.

Not to go back is somewhat to advance, and men must walk, at least, before they dance.

Sometimes I get the start of a story from a memory, an anecdote, but that gets lost and is usually unrecognizable in the final story.

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 wonder how many times people give up just before a breakthrough – when they are on the very brink of success.

When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.

Sitting on a bedroom floor crying is something that makes you feel really alone. If someone’s singing about that feeling, you feel bonded to that person. That’s the only way I can find an explanation for why 55,000 people would want to come see me sing.

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.

I like entertaining people. I really miss it.

He too serves a certain purpose who only stands and cheers.

Everything negative – pressure, challenges – is all an opportunity for me to rise.

Art is the beautiful way of doing things. Science is the effective way of doing things. Business is the economic way of doing things.

It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection.

The good thing about having chemistry is, when you get to the improv section of a scene, you’ve got somebody to feed off. It can go on and on and on, and the sky’s the limit.

Believe me, I’m much easier to be around when we win than when we lose.

Every man has a right to be conceited until he is successful.

A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better.

I think that the digital media are interesting enough in their own right to be worth originating something in.

Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.

I decided to pursue music, so I dropped out of school and I told my parents I didn’t want any money from them. I got three jobs and I just hit the ground running.

If a subject excites us, if it stirs our deepest curiosity, or if we have to learn because the stakes are high, we pay much more attention. What we absorb sinks in.

If we are to be happy, we must first react against our tendency to follow the line of least resistance, a tendency that causes us either to remain as we are, or to look primarily to activities external to ourselves for what will provide new impetus to our lives.

I think it’s really cool when artists have song titles or album names that are a really conversational sentence.

It’s the philosophies of being an athlete that carry me today.

Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

To witness two lovers is a spectacle for the gods.

Sometimes I’ve called writing a disease. If so, I’m glad that it caught me.

The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.

My interest in creating anything is that it be useful.

Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it’s much more serious than that.

Speaking purely from a musical standpoint, I think I am a great performer.