Even if my songs are quite sad or quite dark, I don’t want my songs to make people sad. It’s very important for me that all my songs have some kind of hope or light.

In Puerto Rico we dance to everything.

If I’d had good discipline, I might have gone into music.

I believe in singing to such an extent that, if I were asked to redesign the British educational system, I would start by insisting that group singing becomes a central part of the daily routine. I believe it builds character and, more than anything else, encourages a taste for cooperation with others.

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.

We will move forward, we will move upward, and yes, we will move onward.

Zappa was very technical and impressed by things that were musically challenging – weird time signatures, strange keys, awkward chord sequences. Zappa was important to me as an example of everything I didn’t want to do. I’m very grateful to him, actually.

Indians felt despondent about Indian governance. Changing that atmosphere of gloom was a very challenging task, and I faced many difficulties in rectifying the situation and bringing back confidence and hope.

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.

How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

I don’t believe in pessimism. If something doesn’t come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it’s going to rain, it will.

I never go into a situation with any type of expectations.

Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.

Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.

They say you can rap about anything except for Jesus, that means guns, sex, lies, video tapes, but if I talk about God my record won’t get played Huh?

I would love to get Rihanna on a Khaled song. That’s my friend, but every time I’m around her, I get shy.

Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.

If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.

I believe in manicures. I believe in overdressing. I believe in primping at leisure and wearing lipstick. I believe in pink. I believe happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day, and… I believe in miracles.

I didn’t want to play it boring and safe. I also didn’t want to innovate too much. Second albums, man, they’re even scarier than first ones.

I can operate in half-a-song format.

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.

There are more pleasant things to do than beat up people.

You listen to the radio and all the songs sound the same, from 8 in the morning to 12.

It is justice and respect that I want the world to dust off and put – without delay, and with tenderness – back on the head of the Palestinian child. It will be imperfect justice and respect because the injustice and disrespect have been so severe. But I believe we are right to try.

Yeah we all shine on, like the moon, and the stars, and the sun.

Bragging just sounds good, man.

My music is a luxury.

The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.

Most of us have hoped and prayed for something to happen a certain way, but it didn’t. And when this happened, we had a choice to make: to react with offense toward God or to trust Him anyway.

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.

Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.

I would drive to gigs in my tiny little Fiat. I would shoot up and down the M1 to play at various places.

I love good, loud speakers.

When I was a teenager, my biggest lessons came from Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, George Strait, Rascal Flatts and Brad Paisley. I learned so much from opening up for those artists, and it also taught me how to treat your opening acts and make them feel like they’re part of a family, not just a tour.

Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.

It was something I never expected to – I never expected the book would sell in the first place. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers.

I really appreciate the moments that I was able to win rap album of the year or whatever.

We are what we believe we are.

I don’t have any stress. I’m very lucky. I live a very healthy life.

It’s nice, I think, when people use your music for things you didn’t think of.

Life doesn’t require that we be the best, only that we try our best.

Choosing to be positive and having a grateful attitude is going to determine how you’re going to live your life.

Searching for music is like searching for God. They’re very similar. There’s an effort to reclaim the unmentionable, the unsayable, the unseeable, the unspeakable, all those things, comes into being a composer and to writing music and to searching for notes and pieces of musical information that don’t exist.

There have been times that I’ve wept as I’ve gone from city to city and I’ve seen how far people have wandered from God.

In my songs, I’m not saying something that’s never been said before. The have lyrics aren’t going to blow people away. It’s the emotion and the melody that drive it home.

There’s something about music that encourages people to want to know more about the person that made it, and where it was recorded, what year it was done, what they were listening to, and all this kind of stuff. There’s something that invites all this obsessive behavior.

I need music. It’s like my heartbeat, so to speak. It keeps me going no matter what’s going on – bad games, press, whatever!

Madonna, I think, is the greatest visual musical artist that we’ve ever had. If you look at her photo log, the photographers that she was able to work with throughout her career framed her in the proper way. It was the proper context. It was that visual that made sure that everything was gonna cut through in a certain way.

Every setback means you’re one step closer to seeing the dream come to pass.

If you’re doing your best, you won’t have any time to worry about failure.

The man who has done his level best… is a success, even though the world may write him down a failure.

It’s in the difficult times that we’re growing and you can’t just rebuke everything hard. We’ve got to endure it and fight the good fight of faith and pass the test.

We were all on this ship in the sixties, our generation, a ship going to discover the New World. And the Beatles were in the crow’s nest of that ship.

To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.

I can’t see myself singing the same song twice in a row. That’s terrible.

Discontent, blaming, complaining, self-pity cannot serve as a foundation for a good future, no matter how much effort you make.

When there’s justice and change, you start to see the cleansing of the soul, and that is what I want for people, and I hope it’s okay for me to say those things.

Music is really driving my whole life.

I don’t carry the burden of the past or the madness of the future. I live in the present.