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

Starting your own business isn’t just a job – it’s a way of life.

I’ve been asking myself: ‚Why put together these things – CDs, albums?‘ The answer I came up with is, well, sometimes it’s artistically viable. It’s not just a random collection of songs. Sometimes the songs have a common thread, even if it’s not obvious or even conscious on the artists‘ part.

Here’s what I think about music and journalism: The most important thing is to just press play.

I know people said I wasn’t selling out in America, but that was entirely untrue. We sold out all over the world, and every night I looked out into the fans and those front rows that you’re talking about, the tears, the honesty, the inability to not be completely overjoyed because they felt accepted.

When I did ‚Bird,‘ it was a surprise to some people, first because I wasn’t in it and second because most of the films I’d been doing were cop movies or westerns or adventure films, so to be doing one about Charlie Parker, who was a great influence on American music, was a great thrill for me.

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 really appreciate the moments that I was able to win rap album of the year or whatever.

Every night on the court I give my all, and if I’m not giving 100 percent, I criticize myself.

How I love David Bowie.

Becoming a writer is not a ‚career decision‘ like becoming a doctor or a policeman. You don’t choose it so much as get chosen, and once you accept the fact that you’re not fit for anything else, you have to be prepared to walk a long, hard road for the rest of your days.

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.

For me, ‚risky‘ is revealing what really happened in my life through music. Risky is writing confessional songs and telling the true story about a person with enough details so everyone knows who that person is.

He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.

As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I know that the men and women of our intelligence community put their lives on the line every day, and they do very dangerous work to keep our country safe.

Growing up, my grandmother did not want worldly music in the house. Then when I went out to California, I started listening to Spanish music, mostly Mexican music. But were I in Egypt, I would listen to the music of the people, or if I was in Italy, I’d listen to Italian music.

I love the Sex Pistols. I’m a big Beach Boys fan and a huge Zeppelin and Queen fan.

My music definitely comes from a place of experience. Everything connects to a truth.

U2 is sort of song writing by accident really. We don’t really know what we’re doing and when we do, it doesn’t seem to help.

I met India Arie, who is one of my favorite artists of all time. It was really sweet; I was broken up with a month before, and she stayed up texting me all night and was helping me through it. Her text message looks like a song of hers. She’s sort of become my fairy godmother.

I’ve conducted the Boston Pops! Imagine that! Me! Maya Angelou! I’ve sang and danced at La Scala!

Everybody should do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice.

‚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’ve got my Grammys on top of my piano and I look at them when I play.

When I’m writing, I’m thinking about how the songs are going to play live. Fifty bars of rap don’t translate onstage. No matter how potent the music, you lose the crowd. They want a hook; they want to sing your stuff back to you.

When I was in high school, there were these British blues-rock-type bands with really good guitar players that would jam on one song for half an hour. And as much as I was amazed by some of those guitar players, seeing them prompted me to make a note that that’s not something I could do.

We need to try to unite audiences, unite countries, join musical tastes, unite people.

My fans love me for me, my beats, my rhymes.

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

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

‚In Utero‘ was the first time I’d made an album that reached into the dark side. I remember the conflict and the uncertainty. I remember all those things when I hear ‚Pennyroyal Tea.‘

Actors know, with me they aren’t going to be allowed to rehearse a scene for a couple of hours and then get away with doing 25 takes before we get it right. So they come with their full bag of tricks.

Some artists just ruin their voices because they don’t know any better.

I went through all the musicians in my life who I admire as bright, intelligent, virtuosic players.

A reputation as a hard worker is a good reputation to have.

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 try to devote my afternoons to making music in my home studio, but it’s a lot more fun hanging out with musicians and friends, and trying subtly to influence a band than making your own stuff.

Music in itself carries a whole set of messages which are very, very rich and complex, and the words either serve to exclude certain ones or point up certain others.

When everything works best, it’s not because you chose writing but because writing chose you. It’s when you’re mad with it, it’s when it’s stuffed in your ears, your nostrils, under your fingernails. It’s when there’s no hope but that.

I don’t know how the rap game is, because I’m a fan of reality, and the rap game’s entertainment.

My mami and papi love my music. They’re always listening to the radio waiting for one of my songs to come on. And when it does, they turn up the volume – and turn it back down when it’s over.

Being part of a community with a church at its centre and singin‘ hymns is a great thing to do.

I love being on stage, I love being able to tell a story, I love the fact that the audience listens and laughs at it. It makes me happy, and it’s what I live for.

Touring is very routine. You get to the city, you go to the hotel, you got to be at the hotel by a certain time – it’s very routine. I’m not a very structured person, so when I get some structure, it’s cool; it’s good for me.

People tried to change my concept of what music is. That music is work, but it’s not like that.

You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems and suffer and understand, for all that is life.

When I won the first Grammy, there was no other feeling like that feeling. It just made me feel like I came so far, like that was just a dream a few years before that, and then it was happening right then.

I think we’re about ready for a new feeling to enter music. I think that will come from the Arabic world.

I don’t think of Kurt as ‚Kurt Cobain from Nirvana‘. I think of him as ‚Kurt‘. It’s something that comes back all the time. Almost every day.

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

I didn’t have to win, and winning wasn’t important to me. Being world champion wasn’t important to me. What was important to me was entertaining the audience, and whether that meant winning, losing, singing, or whatever it was on the live show we were doing every week, which was awesome, I was game for it.

Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the Divine.

My goal in music is to create nostalgic moments.

The point about melody and beat and lyric is that they exist to engage you in a very particular way. They want to occupy your attention.

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 don’t make music – it makes us.

Ninety percent of all music is always crap, and when too many people decide they’re going to have guitar bands, then ninety percent of them are going to be crap. It’s just a given law.

You aren’t normal if you sing to people. You aren’t a normal person. It’s nerve-racking.

Science is the captain, and practice the soldiers.

I didn’t live at school, I lived where I could and studied what I enjoyed studying. I took what I wanted from that education but was making my first record at the same time. I don’t know anyone from school. I was just leading a different life. I was really interested in writing and other things.

All of my songs are autobiographical.