Every day, my mom and I would watch a different Judy Garland VHS. I love how she tells a story when she sings. It was just about her voice and the words she was singing – no strings attached or silly hair or costumes, just a woman singing her heart out. I feel like that doesn’t happen that much anymore.

If you want to find the source of much of the music of modern day Russia, you will find it in the incredible compositions of that crazed lunatic Berlioz.

I really wish I knew what I was doing because I’d be writing hit songs every minute.

I don’t think the relationship between novels and realities are one to one. Of course novels play different roles. It’s essentially just a long narrative form. What you use that long narrative form for can be very different.

Taylor Swift’s audience can listen to me, but so can the street kids. I want to touch it all.

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.

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.

Speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again.

The kind of fiction I’m trying to write is about telling the truth.

I just know that I’m a fan of all different kinds of genres. You’re supposed to be free doing music, and that’s how I feel.

I don’t even listen to rap. My apartment is too nice to listen to rap in.

The good times of today, are the sad thoughts of tomorrow.

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.

The jazz I love is sweet and pure with raw elements, which is exactly what the good hip-hop is doing now.

Journalism makes you think fast. You have to speak to people in all walks of life. Especially local journalism.

If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song.

As long as my music is real, it’s no limit to how many ears I can grab.

My shows are not narratives.

I don’t think a song should be put in a category.

If tomorrow I want to release a rock album or I want to release a bachata album, nobody can tell me anything – why can’t I?

I like gaps; all my stories have gaps. It seems this is the way people’s lives present themselves.

Making music is like shopping for me. Every song is like a new pair of shoes.

If you play an instrument, it makes you a better singer. The more you play, the better you sing, the more you sing, the better you play.

To be honest, I never really considered myself to be too much of an actress. So, whenever I get the chance to do music, I’m always, like, just in it. It’s like, ‚Oh my God, I finally get to do this. I’m so happy.‘

Green Eggs and Ham was the story of my life. I wouldn’t eat a thing when I was a kid, but Dr. Seuss inspired me to try cauliflower!

I want to write so well that a person is 30 or 40 pages in a book of mine… before she realizes she’s reading.

I remember talking with Arcade Fire after their first record, when they were getting all kinds of offers from major labels, and I don’t think I gave them any advice. They survived that whole onslaught pretty well anyway without me.

I want my fans to love themselves. It’s almost like I want to hypnotize them so when they hear my music they love themselves instantly.

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

I wanted to be famous for my music and my talent, and I always wished I could cut it out when I left the stage.

If it’s good music, it’s good music.

For me, when I picture the person I want to end up with, I don’t think about what their career is, or what they look like. I picture the feeling I get when I’m with them.

I don’t like the name, U2, actually.

Some artists just ruin their voices because they don’t know any better.

Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.

‚9 to 5,‘ that little song, that little story, just won’t ever end. Just like ‚I Will Always Love You,‘ it just keeps comin‘ back, popping up its head in one way or another.

Why shouldn’t truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.

Take care of all your memories. For you cannot relive them.

In a novel you have to resist the urge to tell everything.

I never wanted to write the sort of song that said, ‚Look at how abnormal and crazy and out there I am, man!‘

Occasionally, some brother sings very earnestly through his nose, often disturbing those around him, but it does not matter how the voice sounds to the ears of man. What is important is how the heart sounds to the ears of God.

I’ve been in the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus since I was 8.

I wrote a few children’s books… not on purpose.

Obviously this song is an achievement for me in my career, but what makes me really feel good is to make Latinos feel proud. To provoke that pride that a pop figure and someone so big in music globally like Drake would sing with me completely in Spanish and create this hit ‚MIA.‘ That’s the best part of it.

We were on for six years. We were in syndication for a while. It had its run. I still see the people from ‚Mr. Belvedere,‘ too. We stay in touch.

That’s why I hate to get started in these jam sessions. I’m always the last one to leave.

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.

The stories are not autobiographical, but they’re personal in that way. I seem to know only the things that I’ve learned. Probably some things through observation, but what I feel I know surely is personal.

If I’m gonna tell a real story, I’m gonna start with my name.

In Hawaii, some of the biggest radio stations are reggae. The local bands are heavily influenced by Bob Marley.

I think music is something that can, and should, be used to get you into different things because eventually what goes up must come down – we’re not going to be the number one group in the world forever – so you have to have something else to fall back on.

The things hardest to bear are sweetest to remember.

What was important to me was entertaining the audience, and whether that meant winning, losing, singing, or whatever it was on the live show we were doing every week, which was awesome, I was game for it.

Because you have things like ‚American Idol‘ and you’ve got radio stations that play music made entirely by computers, it’s easy to forget there are bands with actual people playing actual instruments that rock.

I rate Morrissey as one of the best lyricists in Britain. For me, he’s up there with Bryan Ferry.

I love the Sex Pistols. I’m a big Beach Boys fan and a huge Zeppelin and Queen fan.

I’ve had mixtapes that have been better than albums I’ve heard from other artists. I take my time; I put my heart into it.

My mami and papi love my music. They’re always listening to the radio waiting for one of my songs to come on. And when it does, they turn up the volume – and turn it back down when it’s over.

I wanted a name I could shape the music towards. I was going to Miami quite a lot at the time, speaking a lot of Spanish with my friends from Cuba – ‚Lana Del Rey‘ reminded us of the glamour of the seaside. It sounded gorgeous coming off the tip of the tongue.

Music will never go away, and I will never stop making music; it’s just what capacity or what arena you decide to do it.

Journalism keeps you planted in the earth.