From the time that ‚Nevermind‘ came out in September of 1991 to the time that Nirvana was over, it was really just a few years, and a lot happened in those few years.

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.

He who laughs best today, will also laughs last.

Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.

In any court-like environment of power, you will inevitably find people who are drawn to those who are successful or powerful, not out of admiration, but out of secret envy.

What is once well done is done forever.

No crime is so great as daring to excel.

Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful, that’s what matters to me.

So there’s no guarantee if you like the music you will empathize with the culture and the people who made it. It doesn’t necessarily happen. I think it can, but it doesn’t necessarily happen. Which is kind of a shame.

I always use Michael as, first and foremost, a vocal inspiration, and ‚Off the Wall‘ was definitely the one that made me feel like I could sing.

If someone has a really great boyfriend or career, I think, it’s cool that happens.

It was that famous joke: What’s the last thing the drummer said before he got kicked out of the band? ‚Hey, I wrote a song.‘

I don’t live for the accolades. I’m more so about the music. Making it, and putting it out. Those are the two best feelings.

Instead, I have an abundance mentality: When people are genuinely happy at the successes of others, the pie gets larger.

I don’t like the name, U2, actually.

If you don’t understand the details of your business you are going to fail.

The great thing about America is that you can come from the worst circumstances and become something remarkable.

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.

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

There’s a long way to fall when you pretend that you’re so far away from the earth, far away from reality, floating in a bubble that’s protected by fame or success. It’s scary, and it’s the thing I fear the most: to be swallowed up by that bubble. It can be poison to you, fame.

I want a president with a record of public service, someone whose life’s work shows our children that we don’t chase fame and fortune for ourselves: we fight to give everyone a chance to succeed.

The successful men I admired all built their bodies.

You start to become successful, and everybody starts to drive your money train to the bank, and they’re not thinking anymore about what you want as an artist or if any of that even matters to you. It genuinely upsets people in my life that I don’t care about money, and that’s not my problem.

Once you’ve changed who you are or who you’ve portrayed in your music, the fans, they’ll catch it… Once I feel like the world knows me for anything else but my music, then I feel like I failed.

My experience with songwriting is usually so confessional, it’s so drawn from my own life and my own stories.

People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things.

Today, I’d like to talk to Bob Marley. I’d just like to ask him what was his method. Bob is one of the greatest songwriters ever. I don’t know if people understand how powerful his songs are and the simplicity and genius behind them, from ‚Redemption Song‘ to ‚Is This Love?‘ and ‚I Shot the Sheriff.‘

The best people renounce all for one goal, the eternal fame of mortals; but most people stuff themselves like cattle.

I listen to my old records and I think, ‚How did I ever get on the radio?‘

The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it: so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it.

Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it.

When I did ‚Bird,‘ it was a surprise to some people, first because I wasn’t in it and second because most of the films I’d been doing were cop movies or westerns or adventure films, so to be doing one about Charlie Parker, who was a great influence on American music, was a great thrill for me.

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

In my opinion, rankings are a very fickle measurement of one’s success and it is best to not get carried away by it.

But when I hear a great song, I can’t help but be inspired by it, regardless of whatever genre that song falls under.

I couldn’t have written things like ‚Low‘ and ‚Heroes,‘ those particular albums, if it hadn’t have been for Berlin and the kind of atmosphere I felt there.

I know you’ve heard it a thousand times before. But it’s true – hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don’t love something, then don’t do it.

The secret of success is to be ready when your opportunity comes.

It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.

Imagine your family finally making it from nothing to something, and finally getting things going, and finally buying a beautiful house and taking care of your children – and the next day, it’s completely all gone. Zero. Boom. Flat broke. So that’s when I had to man up.

I was very camera shy. People like hot girls, so I put my music to hot girls and it just became a trend. The whole ‚enigmatic artist‘ thing, I just ran with it. No one could find pictures of me.

The sound and music are 50% of the entertainment in a movie.

When I was in high school, there were these British blues-rock-type bands with really good guitar players that would jam on one song for half an hour. And as much as I was amazed by some of those guitar players, seeing them prompted me to make a note that that’s not something I could do.

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.

What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.

If thou art a man, admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail.

I think that once you’ve had a few No. 1s in your career that you’ve kind of proven yourself, and I don’t feel the need to prove anything anymore.

People with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could ever imagine.

Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.

I guess you could say I devoted myself so strongly to my music that for awhile I forgot about my family. But I only get one set of parents, and I think I forgot about that for a little while.

The woman who can create her own job is the woman who will win fame and fortune.

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.

What I’m hoping is that every album I’m going to do will give my audience something different, and that they’ll grow as I do.

Before success comes in any man’s life, he’s sure to meet with much temporary defeat and, perhaps some failures. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and the most logical thing to do is to quit. That’s exactly what the majority of men do.

People are used to music that justifies street culture but something that’s not touched on is why these kids act the way they act, live the way they live.

So many girls come up and say to me, ‚I have never listened to country music in my life. I didn’t even know my town had a country-music station. Then I got your record, and now I’m obsessed.‘ That’s the coolest compliment to me.

The wish to acquire more is admittedly a very natural and common thing; and when men succeed in this they are always praised rather than condemned. But when they lack the ability to do so and yet want to acquire more at all costs, they deserve condemnation for their mistakes.

But, I’ve always loved John Mayer and I think T-Pain is brilliant.

Affluence means influence.

Everybody that’s successful lays a blueprint out.

I do probably 60 concerts a year in the States. And I go out to clubs in the week. I’m doing new stuff all the time.