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

Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.

There are a whole bunch of roles where people say, ‚Oh, you’re playing yourself.‘ I guess it’s kind of a compliment. Or people say, ‚Oh, man, you just roll out of bed and do that.‘ The work is to make it look effortless. That’s the hard part.

I’m an iPod person.

I’ve got no need to prove to myself that I can do Shakespeare. I’ve done it.

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.

Technique is really personality. That is the reason why the artist cannot teach it, why the pupil cannot learn it, and why the aesthetic critic can understand it.

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.

Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.

I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.

Even if my songs are quite sad or quite dark, I don’t want my songs to make people sad. It’s very important for me that all my songs have some kind of hope or light.

I have not worked out my poems with a careful will, falling rather on haphazard and blind formulation of wordage, a more flowing concept, in a hope for a more new and lively path. I do personalize at times, but this only for the grace and elan of the dance.

I grew up on the Beatles; I love Linkin Park and Green Day. I heard hip-hop for the first time at 11 and realized what I was missing.

Like any creative human being, I would like a bit more control so that it would be a little easier for me when the director says, ‚One tear, right now,‘ that one tear would pop out.

My grandmother took me to church on Sunday all day long, every Sunday into the night. Then Monday evening was the missionary meeting. Tuesday evening was usher board meeting. Wednesday evening was prayer meeting. Thursday evening was visit the sick. Friday evening was choir practice. I mean, and at all those gatherings, we sang.

I tell my fellow reggaetoneros, keep giving it your all and bring more creativity.

Eating words has never given me indigestion.

I draw from the crowd a lot.

I always wanted to operate at the highest altitude, just in terms of hip-hop and the music.

I found music to be the therapy of choice. I guess it is for a lot of people.

A fortunate author can write maybe twelve novels in his lifetime.

To see things in the seed, that is genius.

I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies.

I remember when the candle shop burned down. Everyone stood around singing ‚Happy Birthday.‘

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

If I wish to compose or write or pray or preach well, I must be angry. Then all the blood in my veins is stirred, and my understanding is sharpened.

I just try to write songs that people are going to have a dialogue about.

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

Some people focus more on sonics. Some people focus more on story. I focus on both sonics and story, but music sometimes, just music itself, can turn into more of a maths problem. I guess everything in life is a math problem, but it can be more about an empirical route to getting the symmetry that you want, and this vibe, sonically.

You can’t always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream.

I have the space and liberty to create.

You are remembered for the rules you break.

Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle.

My interest in creating anything is that it be useful.

It’s simple: You get a part. You play a part. You play it well. You do your work and you go home. And what is wonderful about movies is that once they’re done, they belong to the people. Once you make it, it’s what they see. That’s where my head is at.

On the other hand, what I like my music to do to me is awaken the ghosts inside of me. Not the demons, you understand, but the ghosts.

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.‘

O, had I but followed the arts!

Don’t be too harsh to these poems until they’re typed. I always think typescript lends some sort of certainty: at least, if the things are bad then, they appear to be bad with conviction.

You do things when the opportunities come along. I’ve had periods in my life when I’ve had a bundle of ideas come along, and I’ve had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I’ll do something. If not, I won’t do a damn thing.

‚Wrecking Ball‘ is a great song.

In music the passions enjoy themselves.

A writer of fiction is really… a congenital liar who invents from his own knowledge or that of other men.

Whatever is on the page is what I’m married to. I’m very prepared. I’m a thespian. I don’t like to improv. I don’t like to go off course ‚cause I think that’s where stuff happens. When you stick to the material ‚cause it’s written so well, that’s where the magic happens.

I am confident that when the facts and policies have been examined, when the record of performances have been reviewed, Barack Obama and Joe Biden will once again be elected to lead our beloved country to a better future.

There’s more good music being made now than ever before.

I really started writing music to challenge myself, to see what I could write.

If I make music and people hate it, you know, whatever. I’ll die someday, and one day, they will too.

I mean, what would I be doing if I couldn’t write? But that fortunately hasn’t proved to be the case and I can read any day. I still read a lot, and I can write any day, but much more slowly and fewer words.

If you do things, whether it’s acting or music or painting, do it without fear – that’s my philosophy. Because nobody can arrest you and put you in jail if you paint badly, so there’s nothing to lose.

I just know that I’m a fan of all different kinds of genres. You’re supposed to be free doing music, and that’s how I feel.

And poets, in my view, and I think the view of most people, do speak God’s language – it’s better, it’s finer, it’s language on a higher plane than ordinary people speak in their daily lives.

I think love is one of the purest things you can sing about. One of the best things you can sing about.

If it weren’t for the Beatles, I would not be a musician.

There’s been people who’ve rapped and produced – like Kanye – but I don’t feel like on the rapping side there’s ever been a producer who can rap as good as I think I can rap.

When I do listen to music, I’m more prone to listen to the people I’ve always listened to: George Jones, Otis Redding, Alison Krauss and Emmylou Harris.

If I wasn’t Bob Dylan, I’d probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself.

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.

Sometimes in the past when I played something might make me lose focus, or I would go home after a game where I thought I could have played better and I would let it hang over my head for a long time when it shouldn’t.

I think my first album opened a lot of doors for me to push the freedom of speech to the limit.

I was probably 7 years old when I started playing the guitar and writing some serious songs.