I need drama in my life to keep making music.

Keep a good attitude and do the right thing even when it’s hard. When you do that you are passing the test. And God promises you your marked moments are on their way.

Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.

The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me.

I’ve made over 25 studio albums, and I think probably I’ve made two real stinkers in my time, and some not-bad albums, and some really good albums. I’m proud of what I’ve done. In fact it’s been a good ride.

I do some kind of work, whether writing or painting or recording, on a daily basis. And it’s so essential that when I’m involved in the actual process, my so-called ‚real life‘ becomes almost incidental, which becomes worrying.

Getting a great idea with song writing is a lot like love. You don’t know why this one is different, but it is. You don’t know why this one is better, but it is. It sticks in your head, and you can’t stop thinking about it.

I’m a songwriter. Everything affects me.

Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works.

People – especially white people – they want me to be a role model just because of the life I lead. The things I say in my songs, they expect it of me.

Passion is needed for any great work, and for the revolution, passion and audacity are required in big doses.

I was always singing but didn’t plan on pursuing it seriously. When I got to New York City when I was 18, I started playing in clubs in Brooklyn – I have good friends and devoted fans on the underground scene, but we were playing for each other at that point – and that was it.

I read everything, but generally more fact than fiction – especially autobiographies and biographies. I’ve read ‚Long Walk to Freedom‘ by Nelson Mandela at least twice on holiday. Every time, I’m totally awed by his vision, strength and forgiveness. I feel honoured to have got to know him and his wonderful wife Graca over the years.

I play the harmonica. The only way I can play is if I get my car going really fast, and stick it out the window.

I have always enjoyed watching my songs make people cry.

Because of your smile, you make life more beautiful.

My mom cleaned toilets for a long time, and she’d seen a lot of terrible things, but she was still the strength of our family. And there are women like that all across the country – all around the world – who show that type of fortitude.

The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art.

What I cry out for, like every being, with my whole life and all my earthly passion, is something very different from an equal to cherish: it is a God to adore.

The things that transfixed you as a child, that you found most exciting was not a passing fancy, but a message about what you’re supposed to do.

Music is this divine thing, the closest that we can get to something divine. It’s like this instinct we all own, and some of us have found a way to hear that music and write it down and share it with people.

If it’s good music, it’s good music.

A lot of people don’t realise I came out of the Smoky Mountains with a load of songs.

On ‚Grey’s Anatomy‘ I wouldn’t care what I was playing – I would play a corpse, ‚cause I love it that much. It is deep true love, and it will never die.

All I have to say is basically if performing, singing, acting, and dancing is what you want to do, then you just have to do it – no matter where it is.

Deep down, I know I have this intuition or instinct that a lot of creative people have, that their demons are also what make them create.

I like Cardi B!

Everybody has a purpose.

To take a few nouns, and a few pronouns, and adverbs and adjectives, and put them together, ball them up, and throw them against the wall to make them bounce. That’s what Norman Mailer did. That’s what James Baldwin did, and Joan Didion did, and that’s what I do – that’s what I mean to do.

Most rock journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, for people who can’t read.

Passion for fame: A passion which is the instinct of all great souls.

I respect Drake not only as a creative person but as a business mind as well. I think Drake’s important.

Science does not know its debt to imagination.

We’re all dreamers.

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 always had music growing up, but music was also like a journal. It was like my personal diary or personal journal. A lot of the things I couldn’t express to an individual, I would express them in my music.

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.

I really love the culture of hip-hop.

Do creative, social, and civic attitudes change depending on where we live? Yes, I think so.

Good leaders must communicate vision clearly, creatively, and continually. However, the vision doesn’t come alive until the leader models it.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

I definitely think, generally, rap is misogynistic.

Love is only one of many passions.

Making music is like shopping for me. Every song is like a new pair of shoes.

Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.

I ain’t never far away from a pencil and paper or a tape recorder.

All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.

If I haven’t any talent for writing books or newspaper articles, well, then I can always write for myself.

I have never used Auto-Tune in a live television performance, and I have never used Auto-Tune in any of my concerts. That is a promise.

All the breaks you need in life wait within your imagination, Imagination is the workshop of your mind, capable of turning mind energy into accomplishment and wealth.

I used to like to set different film clips to classical music, not even my own songs, but make little movies.

Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood.

I just have a thing in my brain that when I’m about to do something that’s genuine or authentic, I think of it in song form. I’ll be like, ‚Yo, this is a human emotion that no one talks about.‘

I’m in this business to be creative – I’ll even diminish it and say to be a content provider.

Basketball is booming, and it’s not just an Under Armour standpoint: it’s about the game itself. Kids going out and playing and being inspired by what we do on the court.

I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.

My songs always sound a lot better in person than they do on the record.

One thing that writers have in common is that they are readers first. They have read lots and lots of stuff, because they’re just infested with lots of stuff.

When I’m really interested in something, I get superfocused on that. And I can spend hours upon hours not getting tired of reading about it and still be interested to learn more about it.

If there’s not drama and negativity in my life, all my songs will be really wack and boring or something.

My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.