Five or six songs leaked from the original version of ‚Encore.‘ So I had to go in and make new songs to replace them.

I wanted to drop three albums in a year because no one had done it. It was bold, unheard of.

On Saturday afternoons when all the things are done in the house and there’s no real work to be done, I play Bach and Chopin and turn it up real loudly and get a good bottle of chardonnay and sit out on my deck and look out at the garden.

My purpose is to make exciting music, and I feel like I’ll be doing that for the rest of my life, so there’s no pressure.

If you talk bad about country music, it’s like saying bad things about my momma. Them’s fightin‘ words.

Years ago, when I first started being a big star, I had fans that were fanatical. It was when ‚Jolene‘ was a big hit.

You go to a festival, you know you’re not going to play all new material at a festival. The audience is not there for that. I’ve made that mistake, but you find out pretty quickly.

I’ve always loved Def Leppard, ever since I was little.

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.

Doing the box set is one of those things where you get to rewrite your own history to some extent. We could take out some of the songs that we felt weren’t as strong as some of the others, so you look better.

I’ve got my Grammys on top of my piano and I look at them when I play.

If this were all to go away tomorrow, all the big success, I would still be very happy going from bar to bar playing music for people.

Singing into a microphone and learning to play an instrument – learning to do your craft – that’s the most important thing! It’s not about what goes on in a computer!

My songs always sound a lot better in person than they do on the record.

I have to admit I’ve found myself doing the same things that a lot of other rock stars do or are forced to do. Which is not being able to respond to mail, not being able to keep up on current music, and I’m pretty much locked away a lot. The outside world is pretty foreign to me.

I’m not claiming divinity. I’ve never claimed purity of soul. I’ve never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can… But I still believe in peace, love and understanding.

If you pour your life into songs, you want them to be heard. It’s a desire to communicate. A deep desire to communicate inspires songwriting.

I’m a painter in sound.

I don’t know which will go first – rock ‚n‘ roll or Christianity.

Environment is very important to me. Sometimes I have to perform during the day for festivals, and my music does not work in the daytime. It is nighttime music.

I get so excited when a song I wrote that’s very personal to me goes No. 1 and I look down and see people singing the words back to me.

Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.

Man, that record came out and was real big in Memphis. They started playing it, and it got real big. Don’t know why-the lyrics had no meaning.

I think that the idea of having a different approach to every single one of my albums is so exciting to me. I never want to make the same record twice. Why do it? What’s the point?

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

I have never used Auto-Tune in a live television performance, and I have never used Auto-Tune in any of my concerts. That is a promise.

People – especially white people – they want me to be a role model just because of the life I lead. The things I say in my songs, they expect it of me.

I have so many playlists full of Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, Chris Brown.

My grandfather once ventured upon publishing a volume of hymns. I never heard anyone speak in their favour or argue that they ought to have been sung in the congregation. In that volume, he promised a second if the first should prove acceptable. We forgive him the first collection because he did not inflict another.

Of course, ‚I Will Always Love You‘ is the biggest song so far in my career. I’m famous for several, but that one has been recorded by more people and made me more money, I think, than all of them. But that song did come from a true and deep place in my heart.

Hell is full of musical amateurs.

Latin music is universal.

I owe everything to Nirvana. But I can’t let that overshadow the future. For the first few years, I didn’t even want to talk about Nirvana. Partly because it was just painful to talk about losing Kurt but also because I wanted the Foo Fighters to mean something.

A record deal doesn’t make you an artist; you make yourself an artist.

I’ve been on tour since I was 16, and I always do meet-and-greets before and after shows, so you kind of build these friendships with people. I have girls come up to me and tell me exactly what’s going on in their love lives.

We need to try to unite audiences, unite countries, join musical tastes, unite people.

No one tells me what to do with my music. Real. My mom doesn’t tell what to say, how is someone else going to?

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.

One of my goals from really early on was that if I was ever fortunate enough to be successful in music, I would want to stay the same person and the same songwriter.

Getting a great idea with song writing is a lot like love. You don’t know why this one is different, but it is. You don’t know why this one is better, but it is. It sticks in your head, and you can’t stop thinking about it.

When I listen to the radio, I just hear so much music that doesn’t even sound like people. The vocals are all tuned, and the drums are all fake.

I think ‚Hail to the Chief‘ has a nice ring to it.

Who’s to say what’s a good voice and not a good voice?

When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.

I don’t like the name, U2, actually.

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.

You create a community with music, not just at concerts but by talking about it with your friends.

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

In a long meter hymn, a singer – they call it ‚lays out a line.‘ And then the whole church joins in in repeating that line. And they form a wall of harmony so tight, you can’t wedge a pin between it.

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

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

The album requires a certain focus of mine that I can’t really explain – let’s just say it’s all I can really do while I’m doing it.

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

No one sells a song better than the person that wrote it.

U2 is an original species… there are colours and feelings and emotional terrain that we occupy that is ours and ours alone.

Rap was more of a release for me, a journal.

I can understand how some people might resent me for having the audacity to continue playing music, but it’d take a lot more than that to stop me from doing it. I started Foo Fighters because I didn’t want to retreat.

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.

I’m not into albums that are meant to sound perfect.

Music has the power to inspire the world.