I rate Morrissey as one of the best lyricists in Britain. For me, he’s up there with Bryan Ferry.

The age of a woman doesn’t mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.

I was a super once – an extra – in ‚Die Fledermaus,‘ and was seated within three feet of Placido Domingo. I had never heard a voice of that beauty so close up. It felt as if an electric shock were running through me.

I never could get over the fact that The Pixies formed, worked and separated without America taking them to its heart or even recognizing their existence for the most part.

I just love Bowie. I think he’s the ultimate inventor.

Music is really driving my whole life.

Fans are my favorite thing in the world. I’ve never been the type of artist who has that line drawn between their friends and their fans. The line’s always been really blurred for me. I’ll hang out with them after the show. I’ll hang out with them before the show. If I see them in the mall, I’ll stand there and talk to them for 10 minutes.

My goal in music is to create nostalgic moments.

Doing the box set is one of those things where you get to rewrite your own history to some extent. We could take out some of the songs that we felt weren’t as strong as some of the others, so you look better.

I want more of my favorite artists or more of the guy that makes the anthems. I want more.

I was probably 7 years old when I started playing the guitar and writing some serious songs.

The sound and music are 50% of the entertainment in a movie.

I only live in my music, and I have scarcely begun one thing when I start on another. As I am now working, I am often engaged on three or four things at the same time.

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.

If you hear Anarchy in the UK today your hair stands on end. It gives you the shivers.

Music is in my DNA!

We were all on this ship in the sixties, our generation, a ship going to discover the New World. And the Beatles were in the crow’s nest of that ship.

Whatever I’m feeling, whatever I’m going through, whatever mood I’m in… If I’m feeling like dancing or clubbing, then it will be reflected in the music. If I’m feeling dark and vulnerable, then it will reflect in the music, too.

If you want to make beautiful music, you must play the black and the white notes together.

I became interested in folk music because I had to make it somehow.

I love movement. I love moshing.

One and the same thing can at the same time be good, bad, and indifferent, e.g., music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good nor bad to the deaf.

Truly fertile Music, the only kind that will move us, that we shall truly appreciate, will be a Music conducive to Dream, which banishes all reason and analysis. One must not wish first to understand and then to feel. Art does not tolerate Reason.

I think what made it difficult for people to get, and still makes it difficult for people to get, is the theatrical nature of the work and the fact that, my music doesn’t exist without the performance-art element.

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

This land is your land and this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway.

If I’m inspired to make a certain kind of song, I’m going to make that kind of song, no matter if it’s what they know me as or think I am.

It’s a privilege to serve the poor, to be servants of noble Africans, but I better belong in the rehearsal room or in the studio with my band. That’s where I want to be and I still wake up in the morning with melodies in my head.

Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.

There’s more good music being made now than ever before.

Punk was defined by an attitude rather than a musical style.

Hawaii is paradise. It sounds cheesy to say it, but there’s music in the air there.

‚Kiss Land‘ wasn’t about what people wanted to hear on the radio. It was the state of mind I was in – introverted, like David Cronenberg’s ‚Naked Lunch.‘ You didn’t know if you were hearing a chorus or a verse. It was just my thoughts.

Kanye West is my favorite artist.

I like the way the stories of my relationships sound to music more than the way they look in print, in gossip columns or in me talking about them in interviews. I think it’s a better way of telling the stories.

It is impossible to experience one’s death objectively and still carry a tune.

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.

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

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.

People haven’t always been there for me, but music always has.

It’s very fun to be the hunter of the sounds. The hunter of the right energy. And it’s not really about if every sound is correct; it’s more the energy – if it hits you in some way, it doesn’t really matter to me if it’s not perfect. I’m still very excited while hunting for songs.

The jazz I love is sweet and pure with raw elements, which is exactly what the good hip-hop is doing now.

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.

For instance, I’m always fascinated to see whether, given the kind of fairly known and established form called popular music, whether there is some magic combination that nobody has hit upon before.

In Hawaii, some of the biggest radio stations are reggae. The local bands are heavily influenced by Bob Marley.

All Montreal bands have around nine members, I believe.

When I’m writing a record, I kind of don’t listen to much music. Just because I want to be inspired solely on the emotion; just based on how it feels.

If I make music and people hate it, you know, whatever. I’ll die someday, and one day, they will too.

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

The truth of it is that every singer out there with songs on the radio is raising the next generation, so make your words count.

I’ve noticed a lot of younger artists have less fear of doing different sorts of things, whether it’s various types of music, or gallery artists moving between video and sculpture and drawing.

I always say, you gotta play a dive bar like you play an arena, and you play an arena like you play a dive bar.

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

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

There’s been people who’ve rapped and produced – like Kanye – but I don’t feel like on the rapping side there’s ever been a producer who can rap as good as I think I can rap.

I never went to rock concerts when I was a kid. I didn’t see any rock & roll bands. I had posters on my wall. I had Beatles records.

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.

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.

However, because Britain is young and exciting, I did show my second line here once or twice.

Music is not math. It’s science. You keep mixing the stuff up until it blows up on you, or it becomes this incredible potion.

Compton got such a legacy in hip-hop.