I put out one album one week, and I’m already worried about the next one. I feel a lot of emotion throughout the course of a day. But not to the point where you need to be worried about me.

Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. They’re my biggest heroes. I love everything about Leonard Cohen: his lyrics and his voice. He seems like a really clever man, and Bob Dylan does as well. He’s just really cool.

It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.

If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.

Love is only one of many passions.

I’m not ashamed to say I fear something.

Most of the time, songs that I write end up being finished in 30 minutes or less.

Short cuts make long delays.

Whenever I write a novel, I have a strong sense that I am doing something I was unable to do before. With each new work, I move up a step and discover something new inside me.

I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.

I could sing you a thousand and one doo-wop songs. I love the simplicity in that music. It’s not super-poetic, it’s just from the heart.

We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans – because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That’s why we paint, that’s why we dare to love someone – because we have the impulse to explain who we are.

Environment is very important to me. Sometimes I have to perform during the day for festivals, and my music does not work in the daytime. It is nighttime music.

I can play a lot of different instruments adequately but nothing really well.

I definitely think, generally, rap is misogynistic.

Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.

The prospect of music being detachable from time and place meant that one could start to think of music as a part of one’s furniture.

When I heard Little Richard, I mean, it just set my world on fire.

The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.

My faith helps me overcome such negative emotions and find my equilibrium.

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

The least productive people are usually the ones who are most in favor of holding meetings.

I never drink coffee at lunch. I find it keeps me awake for the afternoon.

I’m a movie maker, but I have the same feelings as the average guy out there.

I do probably 60 concerts a year in the States. And I go out to clubs in the week. I’m doing new stuff all the time.

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.

Be pleasant until ten o’clock in the morning and the rest of the day will take care of itself.

I think one of my pursuits over the years is trying to answer the question of, ‚What else can you do with a voice other than stand in front of a microphone and sing?‘

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

The fame isn’t important to me. It’s a blessing to have. Having so many people that support me, that love me and listen to my music, is beautiful.

People have so much going on in their heads. I’m like, If you could write a song, you’d feel so much better!

If you had a million Shakespeares, could they write like a monkey?

I think my first album opened a lot of doors for me to push the freedom of speech to the limit.

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

Vanity can apply to both insecurity and egotism. So I distance myself, because I feel everything.

Confidence, as a teenager? Because I knew what I loved. I loved to read; I loved to listen to music; and I loved cats. Those three things. So, even though I was an only kid, I could be happy because I knew what I loved.

We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first, rock ‚n‘ roll or Christianity.

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.

Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.

Art is the beautiful way of doing things. Science is the effective way of doing things. Business is the economic way of doing things.

When I listen to the radio, I just hear so much music that doesn’t even sound like people. The vocals are all tuned, and the drums are all fake.

When I listen to a song, I don’t say, ‚Oh my gosh, that vocal line she sang was the best thing I ever heard.‘ I’m thinking, ‚That lyric just moves me. That lyric just said what I feel better than I could say it myself.‘

The world is full of willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.

What do I care about the purring of one who cannot love, like the cat?

Love is an interesting thing. Perhaps I’ve never been in love before – I don’t really know? I think I have. I guess it’s subjective in that way.

Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

Security is, I would say, our top priority because for all the exciting things you will be able to do with computers – organizing your lives, staying in touch with people, being creative – if we don’t solve these security problems, then people will hold back.

It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances.

Music belongs to the people. To no one else. To no one else.

Usually, when Nirvana made music, there wasn’t a lot of conversation. We wanted everything to be surreal. We didn’t want to have some contrived composition.

The colored folks been singing it and playing it just like I’m doin‘ now, man, for more years than I know. I got it from them.

This thing that I do with caring about the message in my music, it’s not separate from my work as a commercial artist; they’re totally one and the same. I’m always going to be thinking about what my voice means.

Procrastination is the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday.

What women need to understand is that men don’t communicate. It’s not intentional or on purpose. We’re just not as emotional. You ladies feel like you have to express yourselves.

No, I can’t do rap music!

William Maxwell’s my favorite North American writer, I think. And an Irish writer who used to write for ‚The New Yorker‘ called Maeve Brennan, and Mary Lavin, another Irish writer. There were a lot of writers that I found in ‚The New Yorker‘ in the Fifties who wrote about the same type of material I did – about emotions and places.

All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.

I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create.

Educationists should build the capacities of the spirit of inquiry, creativity, entrepreneurial and moral leadership among students and become their role model.