I like to read books. I like to listen to music.

The best books… are those that tell you what you know already.

As for hobbies, I don’t really read or watch TV.

For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.

Read a record number of books in a given month. If you’re focused on intellectual growth, train yourself to study harder and longer than ever before.

I know that some books and some writers, you can pretty much draw a square around it and say, ‚Nobody under 40,‘ or ‚Nobody under 25.‘ With my books, it always has been, and continues to be, spread right across the board, and I think the operative term is ‚reader.‘

I’ve definitely seen bands before they made money kind of change their thing on the next tour, and I prefer it when it’s a little more raw.

I’ve done auditions where the casting director is taking the paper out of my hand in the middle of reading.

I do value the respect I get from my contemporaries, but to have Oasis cover my song, to have Puff Daddy cover a song, to have Goldie come along to my gigs – that’s where my ego is at. To have my fellow musicians like what I do, that’s very cool.

My father… removed from Kentucky to… Indiana, in my eighth year… It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up… Of course when I came of age, I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher… but that was all.

When it comes down to it, glam rock was all very amusing. At the time, it was funny, then a few years later it became sort of serious-looking and a bit foreboding.

I wanted to be Gerry Mulligan, only, see, I didn’t have any kind of technique. So I thought, well, baritone sax is kind of easier; I can manage that – except I couldn’t afford a baritone, so I bought an alto, which was the same fingering.

How I love David Bowie.

I spend a lot of time reading.

‚Jolene‘ has been very popular all of these years, even overseas.

Doing music to pay bills is an uncomfortable situation. I never wanted to be in that situation.

Reading and writing are connected. I learned to read very early so I could read the comics, which I then started to draw.

Sometimes you stumble across a few chords that put you in a reflective place.

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.

I didn’t think it was special to be able to sing.

I wish I could make music about politics. I feel like it’s such an art and a talent that I admire tremendously, but when I step into the studio, I step out of the real world, and it’s therapeutic.

I can understand how some people might resent me for having the audacity to continue playing music, but it’d take a lot more than that to stop me from doing it. I started Foo Fighters because I didn’t want to retreat.

Singing into a microphone and learning to play an instrument – learning to do your craft – that’s the most important thing! It’s not about what goes on in a computer!

I don’t know, I feel desperate when I sing. And I look desperate – it feels like I’m singing for my life, which makes me twitch, if that makes sense.

Music is a really great creative tool for me, for different roles.

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

Music has to be sort of ignorable sometimes.

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

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

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.

A capacity, and taste, for reading gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others.

I’ve always been a fan of melody and emotional melancholy, whether it was Rites of Spring or Tears for Fears or Neil Young. If I hear a song that has a sweet melody, I’m a sucker for it, whether it’s Linkin Park or Little Richard.

If your man is a sports enthusiast, you may have to resign yourself to his spouting off in a monotone on a prize fight, football game or pennant race.

I don’t race cars.

I always hated how I looked on camera. I never put a face to my music, which actually made the music that much more mysterious.

If you ever see young artists, and they’re not sounding good, they sound good. They’re good singers. They wouldn’t be where they are if they didn’t sound good. It’s their nerves. Any time you see your favorite artist, and he’s or she’s screwing up or not hitting those notes, it’s not because she can’t hit it or she can’t sing; he or she is scared.

One must be an inventor to read well. There is then creative reading as well as creative writing.

I belong to a gospel choir. They know I am an atheist but they are very tolerant.

I went to an extreme for literary purposes because I felt all the self-help books out there were so gooey and Pollyanna-ish and nauseating. It was making me angry.

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.

A book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us.

My mother is a singer, my sisters all sing, my uncles are incredible singers and guitar players, so it’s just kind of been like my habitat.

I feel like the reason people feel like they know me is because I’m giving you myself in the music. There’s where the connection comes from; you can’t Twitter that.

I’m the only person you’ve ever met who has read Longfellow.

I read a lot of obscure books and it is nice to open a book.

Hawaiian music is beautiful and simple.

U2 is an original species… there are colours and feelings and emotional terrain that we occupy that is ours and ours alone.

Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries.

I started out in life as a poet; I was only writing poetry all through my 20s. It wasn’t until I was about 30 that I got serious about writing prose. While I was writing poems, I would often divert myself by reading detective novels; I liked them.

I grew up listening to the Police, I grew up performing in bars, singing Police songs.

Music has an intrinsic meaning, which has always been mysterious to me.

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.

Books are like a mirror. If an ass looks in, you can’t expect an angel to look out.

My nails are my rhythm section when I’m writing a song all alone. Some day, I may cut an album, just me and my nails.

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

I say, ‚Yeah, Taylor Swift.‘ I think she is a smart, beautiful girl. I think she’s making all the right moves. She’s got a good head on her shoulders. She’s surrounded with wonderful people. Her songs are great. She keeps herself anchored. She knows who she is, and she’s living and standing by that.

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

It was that famous joke: What’s the last thing the drummer said before he got kicked out of the band? ‚Hey, I wrote a song.‘

I spent much of my childhood in northern Quebec, and often there was no radio, no television – there wasn’t a lot to entertain us. When it rained, I stayed inside reading, writing, drawing.

I like to combine the dramatic emotional warmth of strings with the grooves and body business of drums and bass.

I don’t like to feel like I’m in a club when I’m in my car and I turn on the radio. Anything that ceases to be a song and just sounds like house music kind of stresses me out.