I can’t see myself singing the same song twice in a row. That’s terrible.

Most of those melodies are me trying to find out what notes fit, and then hitting ones that don’t fit in a very interesting way.

I’m not really an actor, I’m a reactor; I’m a pitchman. That’s what I do best. Nobody can do it any better.

If I had a stock of fabulous sounds I would just always use them. I wouldn’t bother to find new ones.

To all the musicians who are making reggaeton, let’s put some more effort into it and bring something new to the people!

The secret to the movie business, or any business, is to get a good education in a subject besides film – whether it’s history, psychology, economics, or architecture – so you have something to make a movie about. All the skill in the world isn’t going to help you unless you have something to say.

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.

Songs don’t have to be about going out on Saturday night and having a good rink-up and driving home and crashing cars. A lot of what I’ve done is about alienation… about where you fit in society.

Dancers are always striving for perfection. A great dancer never achieves it: you always want to do another turn, a higher jump,a more difficult acrobatic jump.

The technology keeps moving forward, which makes it easier for the artists to tell their stories and paint the pictures they want.

It’s important to love in hip hop.

I was honoured when they asked me to appear at the president’s birthday rally in Madison Square Garden. There was like a hush over the whole place when I came on to sing ‚Happy Birthday,‘ like if I had been wearing a slip, I would have thought it was showing or something. I thought, ‚Oh, my gosh, what if no sound comes out!‘

Oh yes. I’m an actor, so I just learn my lines, and show up and do it. I gave it a little bit of thought.

I can dance to just about anything.

Siren voices tell me, ‚You don’t have to keep going on.‘ And then you think, ‚I’m a writer. What do I do? Sit there watching my wife clean up?‘ I don’t know. I like being a writer.

Rap was my drug.

Music, even with these dial-up connections you have to the Internet, is very practical to download.

So there’s nothing more provocative than taking a genre that everybody who’s cool hates – and then making it cool.

I ain’t never far away from a pencil and paper or a tape recorder.

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.

I just genuinely feel that that’s what you do when you’re an artist: You stick up for the people around you.

If I’m inspired to make a certain kind of song, I’m going to make that kind of song, no matter if it’s what they know me as or think I am.

Music is this divine thing, the closest that we can get to something divine. It’s like this instinct we all own, and some of us have found a way to hear that music and write it down and share it with people.

You don’t have to be scared of me, because I am loyal. Why are people so scared of creative ideas and so scared of truth? All I want to do is do good.

I play the harmonica. The only way I can play is if I get my car going really fast, and stick it out the window.

Sometimes I think that there’s a fine line between impressionistic and messy.

I don’t set out to write about spirituality; I am free to do something different every time.

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.

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.

I don’t listen to the radio very much, but that could be because I don’t have a car.

Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.

I’ve never written a political song. Songs can’t save the world. I’ve gone through all that.

Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service. The iMac is not just the color or translucence or the shape of the shell. The essence of the iMac is to be the finest possible consumer computer in which each element plays together.

Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.

Like a pianist runs her fingers over the keys, I’ll search my mind for what to say. Now, the poem may want you to write it. And then sometimes you see a situation and think, ‚I’d like to write about that.‘ Those are two different ways of being approached by a poem, or approaching a poem.

I don’t invest in ideas because ideas are a dime a dozen. I could steal the idea pretty quickly.

The day when I am no more than a writer I shall cease to be a writer.

One of the interesting things about having little musical knowledge is that you generate surprising results sometimes; you move to places you wouldn’t if you knew better.

U2’s best work has always been when we didn’t know what we’re doing.

You can’t do it unless you can imagine it.

When you’re in comedy, people always come up and say, ‚Oh, it must be so hard.‘ It really isn’t hard unless you’re not good at it. If you can do it, its really kind of fun and easy.

I think frugality drives innovation, just like other constraints do. One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out.

I don’t want to do free jazz! Because free jazz – which is the musical equivalent of free marketeering – isn’t actually free at all. It’s just constrained by what your muscles can do.

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

Art raises its head where creeds relax.

Fill the earth with your songs of gratitude.

I like Cardi B!

Effective philanthropy requires a lot of time and creativity – the same kind of focus and skills that building a business requires.

You ask me if I keep a notebook to record my great ideas. I’ve only ever had one.

I’m such an emotional and sensitive person, so it only makes sense that my songs are as well.

Although I write screenplays, I don’t think I’m a very good writer.

Science does not know its debt to imagination.

My mother says I was writing before I was crawling. I wrote in the dirt with a twig.

I’m honored that everybody’s inspired off my inspiration.

Doo-wop is special music to me because it’s so straightforward and melody-driven and captures emotions.

I can express myself.

The songs are my lexicon. I believe the songs.

Every album, I make big records. I’m going to always make an anthem. That’s what I do.

I live half the year on Necker, a tiny island in the Caribbean, and it’s always full of people in party mode. Everyone comes up to the big house, and we’ll be dancing until the early hours to the island’s band, the Front Line.

I do admire Judi Dench and Sir Ian McKellen, but I’m a philistine. I like the good life too much; I’m not good at going on stage night after night and on wet Wednesday afternoons.