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. And writing Langston Hughes replica poems became me wanting to write like Stevie Wonder.

Bhai was my hero and he had immense influence on me.

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

When you sing with a group of people, you learn how to subsume yourself into a group consciousness because a capella singing is all about the immersion of the self into the community. That’s one of the great feelings – to stop being me for a little while and to become us. That way lies empathy, the great social virtue.

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.

My music definitely comes from a place of experience. Everything connects to a truth.

Every collaboration helps you grow. With Bowie, it’s different every time. I know how to create settings, unusual aural environments. That inspires him. He’s very quick.

I think if I did something in the pop world right now, it would be for Rihanna. I’d love to do something production wise for her.

A good compromise, a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence; or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, ‚Huh. It works. It makes sense.‘

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

You have to dream intentionally. Most people dream a dream when they are asleep. But to be a writer, you have to dream while you are awake, intentionally.

To all the musicians, to the Academy, with all due respect, reggaeton is part of our Latin culture. And its representing as much as any other genre at the worldwide level.

I think the foundation of everything in my life is wonder.

Mozart’s music is so pure and beautiful that I see it as a reflection of the inner beauty of the universe.

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do ever – was write novels.

Ninety percent of all music is always crap, and when too many people decide they’re going to have guitar bands, then ninety percent of them are going to be crap. It’s just a given law.

Life is an exciting business, and most exciting when it is lived for others.

A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men.

I love music, and after my first experience with movies, I can’t wait to do more.

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

I like to read books. I like to listen to music.

A rooster crows only when it sees the light. Put him in the dark and he’ll never crow. I have seen the light and I’m crowing.

I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.

What inspires me about rap is that it’s written in an almost poetic way. I just think it’s so cool.

Art is not a thing; it is a way.

Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don’t want them to become politicians in the process.

Adversity is the diamond dust Heaven polishes its jewels with.

Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

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

I’d say it’s been my biggest problem all my life… it’s money. It takes a lot of money to make these dreams come true.

Muhammad Ali is a legend, a hero of mine.

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

I alone of English writers have consciously set myself to make music out of what I may call the sound of sense.

Music comes to me more readily than words.

It’s when children are 15, 16 or 17 that they decide whether they want to be a doctor, an engineer, a politician or go to the Mars or moon. That is the time they start having a dream, and that’s the time you can work on them. You can help them shape their dreams.

Poetry is the key to the hieroglyphics of nature.

Together with a culture of work, there must be a culture of leisure as gratification. To put it another way: people who work must take the time to relax, to be with their families, to enjoy themselves, read, listen to music, play a sport.

Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

The boys know they’re from Southeast Asia, and they have their food and their music and their friends, and they have a pride particular to them.

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

I believe in singing.

It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go.

A subject for a great poet would be God’s boredom after the seventh day of creation.

It confuses me and disappoints me when somebody says, ‚What does he do? What does he do?‘ My records are some of the biggest anthems ever. What do you think, they magically just appear? Obama walked out to my record.

Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it.

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

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

It’s kind of exhilarating, walking through a crazy, insane mob. The most miraculous process is watching a song go from a tiny idea in the middle of the night to something that 55,000 people are singing back to you.

I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.

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 wrote ‚Channel Orange‘ in two weeks. The end product wasn’t always that gritty, real-life depiction of the real struggle that happened.

When you look at the light bulb above you, you remember Thomas Alva Edison. When the telephone bell rings, you remember Alexander Graham Bell. Marie Curie was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize. When you see the blue sky, you think of Sir C.V. Raman.

I didn’t live at school, I lived where I could and studied what I enjoyed studying. I took what I wanted from that education but was making my first record at the same time. I don’t know anyone from school. I was just leading a different life. I was really interested in writing and other things.

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

My real dream is to have a whole, like, buy a whole piece of land. Imagine, like, a long driveway. Like, a cul de sac-type street, with maybe, like, seven houses. Me be right here. Have my mom be able to be right here. My brother over here. My girl’s grandmother and family right here. Friends over there. That’s my real dream.

This land is your land and this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway.

I often get ideas for songs on the tour bus at odd times. Like at 6am when no one is around, I’d just write.

I am a lucky man. I have had a dream and it has come true, and that is not a thing that happens often to men.

Most of my songs have names of people I’ve met or are dear to me. There are people who have privacy issues and about people knowing about their private life. But for me, I like to include few special names and few details about them to make the song very special to me.

Let a man who has to make his fortune in life remember this maxim: Attacking is the only secret. Dare and the world yields, or if it beats you sometimes, dare it again and you will succeed.