I liberate minds with my music. That’s more important than liberating a few people from apartheid or whatever.

Madonna, I think, is the greatest visual musical artist that we’ve ever had. If you look at her photo log, the photographers that she was able to work with throughout her career framed her in the proper way. It was the proper context. It was that visual that made sure that everything was gonna cut through in a certain way.

I don’t think a song should be put in a category.

The titanic effort that has brought liberation to South Africa, and ensured the total liberation of Africa, constitutes an act of redemption for the black people of the world.

I’d love it if everyone knew one Foo Fighters song.

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.

You know how you either grow up in a Michael Jackson house or a Prince house? For me it was Michael Jackson. I could never decide whether I wanted to be Michael Jackson or marry him.

I owe everything to Nirvana. But I can’t let that overshadow the future. For the first few years, I didn’t even want to talk about Nirvana. Partly because it was just painful to talk about losing Kurt but also because I wanted the Foo Fighters to mean something.

It would make everything I worked for meaningless if baseball is integrated but political parties were segregated.

Music fills in for words a lot of the time when people don’t know what to say, and I think music can be more eloquent than words.

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.

I never had that feeling that I had to carry the weight of somebody’s ignorance around with me. And that was true for racists who wanted to use the ‚n‘ word when talking about me or about my people, or the stupidity of people who really wanted to belittle other folks because they weren’t pretty or they weren’t rich or they weren’t clever.

Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.

I want to be the white man’s brother, not his brother-in-law.

I always use the same guitar; I got this guitar years and years ago for nine pounds. It’s still got the same strings on it.

I was a strange, loud little kid who could sit at the piano and kill a Beethoven piece.

When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.

My heart, which is so full to overflowing, has often been solaced and refreshed by music when sick and weary.

I’ve rarely seen video screens used well in a music concert.

All I really had was a suitcase and my drums. So I took them up to Seattle and hoped it would work.

I had to resign myself, many years ago, that I’m not too articulate when it comes to explaining how I feel about things. But my music does it for me, it really does.

Five or six songs leaked from the original version of ‚Encore.‘ So I had to go in and make new songs to replace them.

By 1960, the South Africans knew that they were becoming a pariah state.

Robyn is who I am. Rihanna – that’s an idea of who I am.

We don’t make music – it makes us.

My favorite artists always documented emotion. Marvin Gaye and Al Green and Sade and Aaliyah.

Every day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music and rings the whole day through, and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life march, as you will.

All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince.

A chorus is not easy.

Everyone I look up to is bringing me into the tech world. You’d be surprised by all the music people in it, invested in it.

I sing seriously to my mom on the phone. To put her to sleep, I have to sing ‚Maria‘ from West Side Story. When I hear her snoring, I hang up.

The distinguishing sign of slavery is to have a price, and to be bought for it.

Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world.

Music for me, it demands full concentration.

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

Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another.

I’ve never thought about songwriting as a weapon. I’ve only thought about it as a way to help me get through love and loss and sadness and loneliness and growing up.

I was very camera shy. People like hot girls, so I put my music to hot girls and it just became a trend. The whole ‚enigmatic artist‘ thing, I just ran with it. No one could find pictures of me.

I don’t ever want to come out with something safe and get away with, ‚It sounds good!‘ It’s got to be more than sounding good. The music I like are events.

I never went to rock concerts when I was a kid. I didn’t see any rock & roll bands.

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

The thing that will never go away is that connection you make with a band or a song where you’re moved by the fact that it’s real people making music. You make that human connection with a song like ‚Let It Be‘ or ‚Long and Winding Road‘ or a song like ‚Bohemian Rhapsody‘ or ‚Roxanne,‘ any of those songs. They sound like people making music.

Rhythm is something you either have or don’t have, but when you have it, you have it all over.

In case you’re wondering whether I lip synch, the answer is no… people think so because I sound so good.

‚Evil men have no songs.‘ How is it that the Russians have songs?

To all the musicians, to the Academy, with all due respect, reggaeton is part of our Latin culture. And its representing as much as any other genre at the worldwide level.

Yes, the Bible should be taught in our schools because it is necessary to understand the Bible if we are to truly understand our own culture and how it came to be. The Bible has influenced every part of western culture from our art, music, and history, to our sense of fairness, charity, and business.

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

I personally have always been in favor of people who are gay being permitted to marry legally – and I still feel that way.

Generally speaking, men are held in great esteem in all parts of the world, so why shouldn’t women have their share? Soldiers and war heroes are honored and commemorated, explorers are granted immortal fame, martyrs are revered, but how many people look upon women too as soldiers?

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

To all the musicians who are making reggaeton, let’s put some more effort into it and bring something new to the people!

I think ‚Hail to the Chief‘ has a nice ring to it.

My fans don’t feel like I hold anything back from them. They know whatever I’m going through now, they’ll hear about it on a record someday. They’ll hear the real story. There’s a little bit of lag time. It’s not as instant as going on a gossip blog. But it’s much more accurate.

I look out at the stadiums full of people and see them all knowing the words to songs I wrote. And curling their hair! I remember straightening my hair because I wanted to be like everybody else, and now the fact that anybody would emulate what I do? It’s just funny. And wonderful.

I alone of English writers have consciously set myself to make music out of what I may call the sound of sense.

I’m personally more struck by visual things more than musical.

A Khaled record is always the best.

Pretty much my whole life, I’ve been a performer and have loved singing and writing songs in my room for my own ears.

I get so excited when a song I wrote that’s very personal to me goes No. 1 and I look down and see people singing the words back to me.

From the time that ‚Nevermind‘ came out in September of 1991 to the time that Nirvana was over, it was really just a few years, and a lot happened in those few years.