‚Bellyache‘ is totally fictional. I like writing about things that aren’t real. The song is about not trusting anyone and then putting trust in yourself and realizing that you don’t know what you are doing, either. Or realizing that things you do with a group of people that you think are cool in the moment are ultimately all on you.

There’s a rebel lying deep in my soul.

When I heard Little Richard, I mean, it just set my world on fire.

All fiction is about people, unless it’s about rabbits pretending to be people. It’s all essentially characters in action, which means characters moving through time and changes taking place, and that’s what we call ‚the plot‘.

When I was younger, I was testing myself and questioning everything, but now it’s less about that and more about these are the years of my life with my family.

Robert Fripp and I will be recording another LP very soon. It should be even more monotonous than the first one!

Reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice. And, of course, if there are no young readers and writers, there will shortly be no older ones. Literacy will be dead, and democracy – which many believe goes hand in hand with it – will be dead as well.

From the beginning of my rap career, since I was seen and heard, I always had a store.

Every time I make American film I just trust American directors and American writers.

I always felt like there was a certain standard of music that I had to do from the beginning, even when I didn’t have the recognition that I have now.

Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.

The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.

I have to write 100 songs before you write the first good one.

I’m happy being myself, which I’ve never been before. I always hid in other people, or tried to find myself through the characters, or live out their lives, but I didn’t have those things in mine.

I think I work much harder on the children’s books. I suppose I enjoy that. I find it interesting that although there are more than 30 books in the Discworld series, it is the four that were written for children which have won the awards. I’ve never been quite certain why this is.

I know a lot of people who wouldn’t be comfortable with everything that comes with being in a band as big as Nirvana. The thing that I don’t understand is not appreciating that simple gift of being able to play music.

To all the musicians, to the Academy, with all due respect, reggaeton is part of our Latin culture. And its representing as much as any other genre at the worldwide level.

I was enjoying myself writing, because I don’t know what’s going to happen when I take a ride around that corner. You don’t know at all what you’re going to find there. That can be thrilling when you read a book, especially when you’re a kid and you’re reading stories.

Punk is musical freedom. It’s saying, doing and playing what you want. In Webster’s terms, ‚nirvana‘ means freedom from pain, suffering and the external world, and that’s pretty close to my definition of Punk Rock.

I didn’t think it was special to be able to sing.

When I was performing the songs on ‚Kiss Land,‘ it was a great singalong. But there were moments where I realized some parts were catchier than the others. There’s maybe two choruses on all of ‚Kiss Land.‘

I sang a lot of low stuff on songs like ‚Secrets‘ and ‚Rockin‘,‘ almost like Toni Braxton. On ‚Secrets,‘ I’m a different person.

When I write, I write about my surroundings. Sometimes it’s light, and sometimes it gets very dark.

It is healthier, in any case, to write for the adults one’s children will become than for the children one’s ‚mature‘ critics often are.

Sometimes I do need to go to karaoke, sometimes I need to relax.

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

Find out who you are. And do it on purpose.

My only scheme was to be a rapper.

I think music is one of the hero/sheroes of the African-American existence.

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

I alone of English writers have consciously set myself to make music out of what I may call the sound of sense.

If you will do what God tells you to do, there’s no person on Earth and no devil in Hell that can keep you from having what God wants you to have.

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

Treachery has existed as long as there’s been warfare, and there’s always been a few people that you couldn’t trust.

You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems and suffer and understand, for all that is life.

Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better.

The things that transfixed you as a child, that you found most exciting was not a passing fancy, but a message about what you’re supposed to do.

I don’t know if it’s changing already with ‚Joanne,‘ but my intention is to bring people together that don’t know each other and that would maybe feel awkward, but somehow be brought together by the music. That’s what I wanted to do. Because that is pure and authentic to my family history and what I stand for.

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

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.

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.

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

I always hated how I looked on camera. I never put a face to my music, which actually made the music that much more mysterious.

Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.

College isn’t in everyone’s hearts. I am living proof, though, that school doesn’t mess up your plans. It gives you more experiences to write about.

When we tackle obstacles, we find hidden reserves of courage and resilience we did not know we had. And it is only when we are faced with failure do we realise that these resources were always there within us. We only need to find them and move on with our lives.

We must be our own before we can be another’s.

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

I like to combine the dramatic emotional warmth of strings with the grooves and body business of drums and bass.

I really am a fan of Ye’s music.

I’ll think I have a few wonderful friends and all of a sudden, ooh, here it comes. They do a lot of things. They talk about you to the press, to their friends, tell stories, and you know, it’s disappointing.

My favorite record label of all time is Motown. That era of music was my favorite.

When I say that basically writing is a hard hustle, I don’t mean that it is a bad life, if one can get away with it. It’s the miracle of miracles to make a living by the typer.

One and the same thing can at the same time be good, bad, and indifferent, e.g., music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good nor bad to the deaf.

It is important for you to know who you are and who you may become. It is more important than what you do, even as vital as your work is and will be.

A sense of the universe, a sense of the all, the nostalgia which seizes us when confronted by nature, beauty, music – these seem to be an expectation and awareness of a Great Presence.

The day when I am no more than a writer I shall cease to be a writer.

You can’t build a plot out of jokes. You need tragic relief. And you need to let people know that when a lot of frightened people are running around with edged weaponry, there are deaths. Stupid deaths, usually. I’m not writing ‚The A-Team‘ – if there’s a fight going on, people will get hurt. Not letting this happen would be a betrayal.

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

Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.