I get a more passionate delivery when I just go in the booth and let the music talk.

I’ve always loved Def Leppard, ever since I was little.

There are a lot of self-imposed restrictions by people who somehow believe they have to fall in with a certain military cant. There was always a sense that we had to put things into words that would touch our troops‘ hearts, not just their heads.

Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.

Ideas are the beginning points of all fortunes.

I would say that jazz is my own language.

It’s very fun to be the hunter of the sounds. The hunter of the right energy. And it’s not really about if every sound is correct; it’s more the energy – if it hits you in some way, it doesn’t really matter to me if it’s not perfect. I’m still very excited while hunting for songs.

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

I am an artist, and I have the ability and the free will to choose the way the world will envision me.

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

A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

Writing has always had that tactile quality for me. It’s a physical experience.

Creative people don’t behave very well generally. If you’re looking for examples of good relationships in show business, you’re gonna be depressed real fast. I don’t have time for anything else right now but work and my daughter. She’s my first priority.

The music we do is for people to enjoy, dance and sing to it. Dreamers – keep on dreaming and keep working hard to achieve your goals. There are many difficulties, but what matters is to stay focused and have perseverance.

I ain’t here to argue about his facial features. Or here to convert atheists into believers. I’m just trying to say the way school need teachers the way Kathie Lee needed Regis that’s the way yall need Jesus.

If I waited for perfection… I would never write a word.

Those who create are rare; those who cannot are numerous. Therefore, the latter are stronger.

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

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.

In Puerto Rico we dance to everything.

All of my records, I produced, put together completely. All of them. Maybe Drake might come with an idea, and I might finish it. You gotta remember what a producer is. Quincy Jones is a producer.

Frankly, I mean, sometimes the interpretations I’ve seen on some of the songs that I’ve written are a lot more interesting than the input that I put in.

It would be a terrific innovation if you could get your mind to stretch a little further than the next wisecrack.

My music is influenced by L.A. culture.

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

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

When we started, a lot of bands sounded really different from one another.

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 think ABBA have a pure joy to their music and that’s what makes them extraordinary.

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

Every now and then I will see a word as if for the first time, and suddenly appreciate that Evian is ‚naive‘ spelled backward, or that Bosnia is an anagram of ‚bonsai.‘

It seemed like a very small possibility for me to become an artist. I didn’t have the need to be on the stage; I didn’t feel the need to be heard. I just needed to write.

Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something.

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

It’s very rare that you get a director that lets you be creative and bring what you feel your character should do or should be.

As much as I love the Western genre, I figured if I kept doing those, I’d eventually run out of steam on that, and that would’ve been the end of it.

Music will never go away, and I will never stop making music; it’s just what capacity or what arena you decide to do it.

I don’t just listen to rap.

An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.

Even if you have nothing to write, write and say so.

It’s not essential for me to have a big debut week; it’s not essential for me to have big radio records.

I’ve tried different things through the years to get some play on mainstream. I’ll try to tailor-make it.

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

All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant’s revolving door.

An author writes a book, and that’s the book at that point. And if the author writes the book again, then somehow something has gone wrong, if you see what I mean.

I can’t make a song for a particular person or demographic. If I love it, I’m gonna do it. I have to perform it for the rest of my life. A song is like a tattoo – you can never get away from it.

Fiction is such a world of freedom, it’s wonderful. If you want someone to fly, they can fly.

What I have is a malevolent curiosity. That’s what drives my need to write and what probably leads me to look at things a little askew. I do tend to take a different perspective from most people.

I would love to get Rihanna on a Khaled song. That’s my friend, but every time I’m around her, I get shy.

The writing is important, but the way you say the line and the pause you give it, the facial expression – all of that is very important.

Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.

I’ve made sure that in any situation and with any record label, I’m allowed to write my own music.

Imagination rules the world.

Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.

My favorite record label of all time is Motown. That era of music was my favorite.

I don’t know if I ever feel totally great about a record when I put it out. With every record that I put out, someone has literally got to come pry it from me because when I listen to my own music, I just hear flaws in it.

Knowledge is a polite word for dead but not buried imagination.

The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.

The good thing about having chemistry is, when you get to the improv section of a scene, you’ve got somebody to feed off. It can go on and on and on, and the sky’s the limit.

In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats – maybe it’s imperative that we encounter the defeats – but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. Human beings are more alike than unalike.

There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It’s always been my way of expressing what, for me, is inexpressible by any other means.