I don’t profess to have music as my big wheel and there are a number of other things as important to me apart from music. Theatre and mime, for instance.

Music for me, it demands full concentration.

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

We tend to mistake music for the physical object.

You know, my sister sings, my brother plays drums in my band. My whole family is a bunch of musicians.

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.

Television sounded really different than the Ramones sounded really different than us sounded really different than Blondie sounded really different than the Sex Pistols.

Cause I’m a musician, I’m not really good at posing and being a model, like, modeling.

Punk is musical freedom. It’s saying, doing and playing what you want. In Webster’s terms, ‚nirvana‘ means freedom from pain, suffering and the external world, and that’s pretty close to my definition of Punk Rock.

Some people focus more on sonics. Some people focus more on story. I focus on both sonics and story.

If you’re going to spend two years of your life on something, it has to matter to you; you have to be passionate about it.

We have a Boesendorfer piano that I play every day. It keeps my brain and my fingers active.

Everyone enjoys doing the kind of work for which he is best suited.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the ambition of the great painters was to make paintings that were like music, which was then considered as the noblest art.

Since day one, since the first time I touched the pen, I wanted to be the best at what I do.

From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.

I read poetry to save time.

I just love Bowie. I think he’s the ultimate inventor.

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.

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 don’t get bored.

Hip-hop is ever changing but you’ll always have the pack. And you’ll always have those people who are separated from the pack.

People should just buy a CD and rip it. You are legal then.

For me, it’s about becoming a mogul, owning my own projects, and establishing myself as a funding producer. That’s what’s big to me. The movies and all that stuff are great, but the fact that I’m in a position to do what I want to do, however I want to do it and when I want to do it is bigger.

Hip-hop saved my life, man. It’s the only thing I’ve ever been even decent at. I don’t know how to do anything else.

Truthfully, without over-egging it, as I often do, the library and journalism, those things made me who I am.

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

I find that when I get on stage now, I don’t want to perform a lot of my songs because they don’t feel like me. So I want to make songs that are timeless.

I’m a painter in sound.

When I look at acting careers that I really admire, I see that it’s been a precise decision-making process for these people. They make decisions based on what they love, and they do only the things that they are passionate about. They play only characters that they can’t stop thinking about.

I was always interested – I mean, it’s kind of part of your job – I was always interested in the camera.

I used to consider the listener. But now I’m in a space where, if I’m not inspired, I can’t really do the music. I can’t feel it.

Dropkick Murphys get me going, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana… plus, all the regular hip-hop stuff.

If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.

I knew from the age of 16 that I wanted to be a writer because I just didn’t think I could do anything else. So I read and read and wrote short stories and dreamed of escape.

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

I don’t think I’d ever apologise for music I make, no.

I need music. It’s like my heartbeat, so to speak. It keeps me going no matter what’s going on – bad games, press, whatever!

Music is the voice that tells us that the human race is greater than it knows.

I just want to keep writing music.

Love in its essence is spiritual fire.

I hate the idea of genres.

Honestly, I’d love to be remembered as one of the best to ever pick up a mic, but if I’m doing my part to lessen some racial tension I feel good about what I’m doing.

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

The term ‚globalisation‘ is conventionally used to refer to the specific form of investor-rights integration designed by wealth and power, for their own interests.

I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.

I rate Morrissey as one of the best lyricists in Britain. For me, he’s up there with Bryan Ferry.

Years ago, when I first started being a big star, I had fans that were fanatical. It was when ‚Jolene‘ was a big hit.

Fill the earth with your songs of gratitude.

So many people think of me as a character on TV, but first and foremost, my passion is teaching dance and creating employable, working dancers.

Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure, only death can stop it.

There’s something about music that encourages people to want to know more about the person that made it, and where it was recorded, what year it was done, what they were listening to, and all this kind of stuff. There’s something that invites all this obsessive behavior.

I have a very eclectic iPod. So I’ve got my cardio people – so it’s anything from Beyonce to some Jay-Z to Janelle Monae, her song ‚Tightrope,‘ that’s a good cardio song. And then I’ve got Sting. I’ve got Mary J. Blige. I’ve got The Beatles. I’ve got Michael Jackson. I try to pick the songs that I personally love.

The age of a woman doesn’t mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.

I try to really capitalize off of what other rappers really can’t do. There are opportunities that rappers I love simply can’t get, because… you know… I don’t have the tattoos; I have a different image.

I taught myself to play the guitar by listening to Paul Simon records, working it out note by note. He is an incredibly intelligent musician. He’s not someone who has a natural outpouring of melody like McCartney or Dylan, who are just terribly prolific with musical ideas.

I’d like to do a completely off-the-wall collaboration. I would like one of my songs to be the hook to a rap song. That would be so much fun!

If you are born an artist, you have no choice but to fight to stay an artist.

Rap music is the only vital form of music introduced since punk rock.

I wanted a name I could shape the music towards. I was going to Miami quite a lot at the time, speaking a lot of Spanish with my friends from Cuba – ‚Lana Del Rey‘ reminded us of the glamour of the seaside. It sounded gorgeous coming off the tip of the tongue.

I’m putting out this free music, constantly putting it out.