Having listened to great songwriters like James Taylor and Carole King, I felt there was nothing new that was coming out that really represented me and the way I felt. So I started writing my own stuff.

I was set free because my greatest fear had been realized, and I still had a daughter who I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

Jane Austen is the pinnacle to which all other authors aspire.

Everything is an open book. I don’t speak on other people’s hardship, but if it happened in my life or something that has been an experience on my particular journey, I’m going to talk about it. That’s what my fan base appreciates the most. I’m universal. You can relate to the things I say or that I go through.

I like writing. I get cranky when I can’t. Yes, I write books back to back, and I work very hard on them.

I never dreamt, in my dream, I’m Dalai Lama.

Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.

I think it all comes back to being very selfish as an artist. I mean, I really do just write and record what interests me and I do approach the stage shows in much the same way.

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.

A sex symbol becomes a thing. I just hate to be a thing.

When I’m in the studio, I’m looking for creativity I haven’t matched yet, a feeling I haven’t felt. It’s a high.

I don’t like to feel like I’m in a club when I’m in my car and I turn on the radio. Anything that ceases to be a song and just sounds like house music kind of stresses me out.

There’s poetry in being the band that can sell out Wembley but also makes a record in a garage. I don’t like doing what people expect me to do.

Faith Hill is a big role model.

A Khaled record is always the best.

If I heard someone else singing like me, I would buy it in a heartbeat.

The truth of it is that every singer out there with songs on the radio is raising the next generation, so make your words count.

Irregularity and want of method are only supportable in men of great learning or genius, who are often too full to be exact, and therefore they choose to throw down their pearls in heaps before the reader, rather than be at the pains of stringing them.

I read everything, but generally more fact than fiction – especially autobiographies and biographies. I’ve read ‚Long Walk to Freedom‘ by Nelson Mandela at least twice on holiday. Every time, I’m totally awed by his vision, strength and forgiveness. I feel honoured to have got to know him and his wonderful wife Graca over the years.

I thought one should have the attitude of ‚What do you care what other people think!‘

I feel like I was writing as I was learning to talk. Writing was always a go-to form of communication. And I knew I could sing from being in tune with the radio.

Stand-up comedy is mine: it’s my entity; it’s my brand; I own it. I do it when I want to do it.

Man is only great when he acts from passion.

Love is easy, and I love writing. You can’t resist love. You get an idea, someone says something, and you’re in love.

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

I’ve never gotten thick skin. If you close yourself off and you get this protective armor, there is a price you pay with that – of not feeling. And feeling is important when you are a songwriter.

Growing up I’ve watched Lewis and aspired to have some of his attributes, mainly his speed. His raw pace is probably the best of everyone on the whole grid, so there are bits you want from different drivers.

I have always marched to my own beat, and most frequently, it was inconsistent not only with my own immediate family, but with my culture as well.

In acting, you have to pull from real-life situations, from people, to help develop a character.

Whenever I write a novel, music just sort of naturally slips in (much like cats do, I suppose).

Taste is the only morality. Tell me what you like and I’ll tell you what you are.

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.

I own a ’66 Jaguar. That’s the guitar I polish, and baby – I refuse to let anyone touch it when I jump into the crowd.

If a man writes a book, let him set down only what he knows. I have guesses enough of my own.

I dwell in possibility.

Fires can’t be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men. Enthusiasm in our daily work lightens effort and turns even labor into pleasant tasks.

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.

And you find as a writer there are certain spots on the planet where you write better than others, and I believe in that. And New Orleans is one of them.

To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.

Music is in my DNA!

Usually, when Nirvana made music, there wasn’t a lot of conversation. We wanted everything to be surreal. We didn’t want to have some contrived composition.

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.

The prospect of music being detachable from time and place meant that one could start to think of music as a part of one’s furniture.

When I am writing, I do not distinguish between the natural and supernatural. Everything seems real. That is my world, you could say.

The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those move easiest who have learn’d to dance.

It’s a privilege to serve the poor, to be servants of noble Africans, but I better belong in the rehearsal room or in the studio with my band. That’s where I want to be and I still wake up in the morning with melodies in my head.

I don’t like headphones very much, and I rarely listen to music on headphones.

Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to conceive.

The power of our thoughts may never be measured or appreciated, but it became obvious to me as a young boy that there was value and power in being aware of my thoughts and how I expressed myself.

I wanted to write.

He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book.

Susceptibility to the highest forces is the highest genius.

I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering.

Those who create are rare; those who cannot are numerous. Therefore, the latter are stronger.

Howard Zinn was magical as a teacher. Witty, irreverent, and wise, he loved what he was teaching and clearly wanted his students to love it, also.

When I’m inspired, I get excited because I can’t wait to see what I’ll come up with next.

To those of you who received honours, awards and distinctions, I say well done. And to the C students, I say you, too, can be president of the United States.

Do not go gentle into that good night but rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I’m just a kid that defied the odds. I’m just a kid that ignored the doubt. I’m just a kid from a little place in Dublin, Ireland, that went all the way, and I’m going to continue to go all the way.