I definitely think, generally, rap is misogynistic.

Art is not a treasure in the past or an importation from another land, but part of the present life of all living and creating peoples.

Lots of songs aren’t even from my experiences, but they’re about accepting… the dark things about yourself.

Honestly, I never really put the mic down.

I just kept touring and touring until it became second nature to go onstage, perform, and sing.

I don’t just listen to rap.

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

The first rap CD that I had, it was so different for me. The energy, the wordplay, all that caught my attention, and I liked it.

I want to be a recording artist for my whole entire life. But Broadway is something I would come back to at any given moment. I love, love, love doing theater.

It’s important to love in hip hop.

In Puerto Rico we dance to everything.

So many girls come up and say to me, ‚I have never listened to country music in my life. I didn’t even know my town had a country-music station. Then I got your record, and now I’m obsessed.‘ That’s the coolest compliment to me.

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

Quacks are a part of our culture, and we all fall prey to them. Who among us can say, for sure, that even our own personal physicians are honest and competent?

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.

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

‚Nothin‘ on You‘ by B.o.B was the first song where I heard myself on the radio. I’d been trying my whole career to write a song like that, which incorporates live instruments with hip-hop and singing.

I learned how important it is to entertain people and give them a reason to come and watch you play.

I knew the second I finished the first record – ‚House Of Balloons‘ – and had all this material leftover that a trilogy would be best.

If there’s not drama and negativity in my life, all my songs will be really wack and boring or something.

A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians.

Anything that encourages people to pick up an instrument and play, I’m fully behind.

I would like to do a duet with Taylor Hanson, because I have loved Hanson since I was 8.

Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.

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.

One of my big fears is people saying my songs are all starting to sound the same.

I think it’s really cool when artists have song titles or album names that are a really conversational sentence.

My connection with Brazil is so abstract. My blood and my way of thinking is Brazilian, but that’s it. I don’t tend to go back to the past, and although I have an apartment there, I rarely visit. When I move, I really move.

I collect records. And cats. I don’t have any cats right now. But if I’m taking a walk and I see a cat, I’m happy.

No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive.

I’ve started doing book reviews for Barnes & Noble! They saw that I did a lot of book reviews on the site, and they figured that it might not be a bad thing if they got me to do some for them as well. I gave them five categories I’d be interested in reviewing, from art to fiction to music.

I think ‚Invisible‘ is a great song, but I don’t know how accessible it is.

They say you can rap about anything except for Jesus, that means guns, sex, lies, video tapes, but if I talk about God my record won’t get played Huh?

I know a lot of people who wouldn’t be comfortable with everything that comes with being in a band as big as Nirvana. The thing that I don’t understand is not appreciating that simple gift of being able to play music.

My songs are the door to every dream I’ve ever had and every success I’ve ever achieved.

Writing for other artists helped me figure out that magic you have to capture to make everyone connect with a song.

If I was just a fan of music, I would think that I was the number one artist in the world.

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.

I always loved that old song ‚Banks of the Ohio‘ – it was always such a man’s song, so I’ve always wanted to record it.

Where I come from it was really unheard of to be at a party and someone says, ‚What kind of music do you make?‘, and you say, ‚Pop music.‘ You may as well have ‚I’m not cool‘ stamped on your forehead.

I would love to study guitar or trumpet.

The myths underlying our culture and underlying our common sense have not taught us to feel identical with the universe, but only parts of it, only in it, only confronting it – aliens.

My songwriting is like extending a hand to the listener.

Before I became a film major, I was very heavily into social science, I had done a lot of sociology, anthropology, and I was playing in what I call social psychology, which is sort of an offshoot of anthropology/sociology – looking at a culture as a living organism, why it does what it does.

I love artists like Prince, who hold on to that element of mystery.

I would say that jazz is my own language.

Pop music will never be low brow.

Factoring in millions of people when I’m writing a song is not a good idea. I don’t ever do it.

A lot of people don’t realise I came out of the Smoky Mountains with a load of songs.

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.

I’m trying to make God more relevant in our society.

I was doing sold-out shows before I got radio play.

I would love to continue in music, with writing… but I am not the kind of person who will hang around if I start to become irrelevant. If that happens, I will bow down gracefully, raise my kids, and have a garden. And I am going to let my hair go gray when I am older. I don’t need to be blonde when I’m 60!

Hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.

I grew up in a musical family; the majority of my growing up was done in Hawaii. It’s what we do. You sing, you dance, you play ukulele and you drink.

You go to a festival, you know you’re not going to play all new material at a festival. The audience is not there for that. I’ve made that mistake, but you find out pretty quickly.

I used to sing songs and write with my uncle, Bill Owens.

You have to be a bastard to make it, and that’s a fact. And the Beatles are the biggest bastards on earth.

I sure lost my musical direction in Hollywood. My songs were the same conveyer belt mass production, just like most of my movies were.

I love Chris Brown. He’s a superstar. He’s one of the best singers out there.