How I love David Bowie.

I never had to choose a subject – my subject rather chose me.

‚In Utero‘ was the first time I’d made an album that reached into the dark side. I remember the conflict and the uncertainty. I remember all those things when I hear ‚Pennyroyal Tea.‘

If you are lucky enough to find something that you love, and you have a shot at being good at it, don’t stop, don’t put it down.

It’s important to love in hip hop.

Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

Hitch your wagon to a star.

Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I’ll show you someone who has overcome adversity.

One thing that writers have in common is that they are readers first. They have read lots and lots of stuff, because they’re just infested with lots of stuff.

I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.

I don’t know if I ever feel totally great about a record when I put it out. With every record that I put out, someone has literally got to come pry it from me because when I listen to my own music, I just hear flaws in it.

I guess I’m just inspired to tell stories.

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

Our brand of democracy is hard. But I can promise that a year from now, when I no longer hold this office, I’ll be right there with you as a citizen – inspired by those voices of fairness and vision, of grit and good humor and kindness that have helped America travel so far.

All I ever wanted to do with my life was own a little house. I did that way back with ‚Rocky,‘ so now everything I do is just icing on the cake.

In order to carry a positive action we must develop here a positive vision.

I’ve been blessed to be somebody that’s been climbing that success mountain top for years of hard work, you know, but now it’s all connecting. And now, the whole world is watching, you know what I’m saying, and it feels good ‚cause it’s good energy. This is all positive vibes, and good vibes and good energy, so it feels incredible.

My mother is a singer, my sisters all sing, my uncles are incredible singers and guitar players, so it’s just kind of been like my habitat.

Malcolm X was the first political person in this country that I really identified with. If he had lived and not been purged, I probably would have joined the Muslims.

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

If you want to make beautiful music, you must play the black and the white notes together.

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

Hell is full of musical amateurs.

Genres aren’t closed boxes. Stuff flows back and forth across the borders all the time.

Metal, I love metal sounds. If I have a stick with me, I just drag it across a fence. And all fences make different sounds, just like people when they laugh.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

I really want a movie made on Sachin Tendulkar’s life. That is something I’m looking forward to. There will be so much emotion to that movie.

I can write a song in about an hour if it’s a simple country song.

When I heard ‚Jesus, Take the Wheel,‘ I was like, OK. Some people look at it as a song written for an American Idol, Carrie Underwood, who is wonderful. But when you’re a songwriter listening to a song, you hear something else. I heard that song, and wow.

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.

Pretty much my whole life, I’ve been a performer and have loved singing and writing songs in my room for my own ears.

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 eagle has no fear of adversity. We need to be like the eagle and have a fearless spirit of a conqueror!

I find a lot of inspiration through visuals. When I was 12, I saw Aurora’s ‚Runaway‘ music video. Something inside me clicked, like, ‚That is what I want to do, no matter whether it goes anywhere or not.‘

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

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.

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.

Innovation can only occur where you can breathe free.

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.

Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.

My inspiration is R. Kelly, Michael Jackson, and Prince – for the vocals, anyway.

Whenever I’m around some who is modest, I think, ‚Run like hell and all of fire.‘ You don’t want modesty, you want humility.

We all gonna die eventually from something or other, but don’t be a wimp. Put up a good fight.

Editing is now the easiest thing on earth to do, and all the things that evolved out of word processing – ‚Oh, let’s put that sentence there, let’s get rid of this‘ – have become commonplace in films and music too.

I’ve been asking myself: ‚Why put together these things – CDs, albums?‘ The answer I came up with is, well, sometimes it’s artistically viable. It’s not just a random collection of songs. Sometimes the songs have a common thread, even if it’s not obvious or even conscious on the artists‘ part.

I was a strange, loud little kid who could sit at the piano and kill a Beethoven piece.

I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.

There’s something missing in the music industry today… and it’s music. Songs you hear don’t last, it’s just product fed to you by the industry.

My favorite artists always documented emotion. Marvin Gaye and Al Green and Sade and Aaliyah.

A good thing to remember is somebody’s got it a lot worse than we do.

I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success… such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.

Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.

Music comes to me more readily than words.

Love is the attempt to form a friendship inspired by beauty.

Rock ‚n‘ roll is ridiculous. It’s absurd. In the past, U2 was trying to duck that. Now we’re wrapping our arms around it and giving it a great big kiss.

The basis of our partnership strategy and our partnership approach: We build the social technology. They provide the music.

It is impossible to experience one’s death objectively and still carry a tune.

I’m pretty sure I don’t have any songs that are about how much I love someone. They’re all either about, like, ‚I hate you,‘ or ‚You make me hate me.‘

My goal in music is to create nostalgic moments.

My music fights against the system that teaches to live and die.