At the beginning of the 20th century, the ambition of the great painters was to make paintings that were like music, which was then considered as the noblest art.

A man’s worth is no greater than his ambitions.

I’ve always written songs the same way. You learn different tricks – you learn craft, you learn structure, all that – as you go.

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

My dad was into the 1950s doo-wop era. If you look at those groups, or at James Brown, Jackie Wilson and the Temptations in the 1960s, you’ll see you had to be sharp onstage.

You know why Foo Fighters have been a band for 20 years? Because I’ve never really told anybody what I think of them. The last thing you ever want to do is go to therapy with your band.

I used to sing songs and write with my uncle, Bill Owens.

To be able to endure odium is the first art to be learned by those who aspire to power.

The arts have only ever interested a small minority of people, which acted as a kind of nursery to support artists.

It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.

Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art.

I draw from the crowd a lot.

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.

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.

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.

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

I’ve always wanted to own and control the primary technology in everything we do.

I always say this about my music, and music in general: Music is like a time capsule. Each album reflects what I’m going through or what’s going on in my life at that moment.

If you do things, whether it’s acting or music or painting, do it without fear – that’s my philosophy. Because nobody can arrest you and put you in jail if you paint badly, so there’s nothing to lose.

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.

Truly fertile Music, the only kind that will move us, that we shall truly appreciate, will be a Music conducive to Dream, which banishes all reason and analysis. One must not wish first to understand and then to feel. Art does not tolerate Reason.

Every picture has its own demands, and every picture stimulates something within you to tell it a certain way. I don’t know what that is; I don’t think too much about that.

When art dresses in worn-out material it is most easily recognized as art.

England was the first true colonial power to use its dominion over a large part of Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, North America, and many Caribbean islands, in the first half of the 20th century.

If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.

Every bit of me is devoted to love and art. And I aspire to try to be a teacher to my young fans who feel just like I felt when I was younger. I just felt like a freak. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m trying to liberate them, I want to free them of their fears and make them feel that they can make their own space in the world.

Music is this divine thing, the closest that we can get to something divine. It’s like this instinct we all own, and some of us have found a way to hear that music and write it down and share it with people.

When I listen to a song, I don’t say, ‚Oh my gosh, that vocal line she sang was the best thing I ever heard.‘ I’m thinking, ‚That lyric just moves me. That lyric just said what I feel better than I could say it myself.‘

Wagner manages to convey emotion with music better than anyone, before or since.

You just wait. I’m going to be the biggest Chinese Star in the world.

I don’t know, I feel desperate when I sing. And I look desperate – it feels like I’m singing for my life, which makes me twitch, if that makes sense.

The momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.

The mark of all good art is not that the thing done is done exactly or finely, for machinery may do as much, but that it is worked out with the head and the workman’s heart.

I was arrested for lip-syncing karaoke.

I feel like in my music I can be a rebel. I can say things I wouldn’t say in real life.

I love being a part of the country-music community.

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.

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.

While on top of Everest, I looked across the valley towards the great peak Makalu and mentally worked out a route about how it could be climbed. It showed me that even though I was standing on top of the world, it wasn’t the end of everything. I was still looking beyond to other interesting challenges.

I went through every emotion with tryna pursue what I’m doing, you know what I mean? And I think what’s gon‘ separate whoever’s gon go for something, that you ain’t gon‘ quit.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

Dream in a pragmatic way.

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

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.

Myth and fairy-story must, as all art, reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and religious truth (or error), but not explicit, not in the known form of the primary ‚real‘ world.

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.

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.

Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.

I’m happy to be a writer – of prose, poetry, every kind of writing. Every person in the world who isn’t a recluse, hermit or mute uses words. I know of no other art form that we always use.

I know that I always wanted things. I was always proud of my people, proud of my home, but I always wanted more. I think most people do.

I’ve always strived to be successful, not famous.

Life is a song to me.

The Heads were the only band on that scene that had a groove.

It didn’t even occur to me that I’m the last person in the world who should play salsa or Brazilian music.

I never wanted to sing. I just wanted to play rhythm guitar – hide in the back and just play.

I’m hopeful. I know there is a lot of ambition in Washington, obviously. But I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure.

Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout.

I wanted to be in a punk band before I had even heard any punk music.

Music, even with these dial-up connections you have to the Internet, is very practical to download.

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

Mariah and Whitney Houston were my goddesses growing up.