I really love the culture of hip-hop.

I love to play. And fortunately, I don’t know a lot of musicians that suck. I know a bunch of really good ones, and they’re always up for playing.

When I’m 40 and nobody wants to see me in a sparkly dress anymore, I’ll be like: ‚Cool, I’ll just go in the studio and write songs for kids.‘

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.

It’s so sweet, I feel like my teeth are rotting when I listen to the radio.

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

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.

Life is a song to me.

I’ve come to the conclusion that mythology is really a form of archaeological psychology. Mythology gives you a sense of what a people believes, what they fear.

Those who cannot work with their hearts achieve but a hollow, half-hearted success that breeds bitterness all around.

At the end of the day, we started playing football because we loved it.

Compton got such a legacy in hip-hop.

I don’t believe you could be a 39-year-old quarterback in the NFL and eat cheeseburgers every day. I want to be able to do what I love to do for a long time.

I mean, what would I be doing if I couldn’t write? But that fortunately hasn’t proved to be the case and I can read any day. I still read a lot, and I can write any day, but much more slowly and fewer words.

Love is of all passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart and the senses.

Being a student of hip-hop in general, you take technical aspects from places. You may take a rhyme pattern or flow from Big Daddy Kane or Kool G Rap.

There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something we’d all love one another.

My parents were fairly young in the city of Compton. So the things that they played – you know, that was the hip crowd. So I was being exposed to all these ideas, from Big Daddy Kane to Eazy-E to the Bay Area – Too Short, E-40 – you know, back to Marvin Gaye and the Isley Brothers.

You get to a point where it’s like you can’t really do anything right, and people will pick on you for whatever decisions you make, so I just try and take no notice and get on with my music.

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

I love music, and after my first experience with movies, I can’t wait to do more.

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.

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

There’s something missing in the music industry today… and it’s music. Songs you hear don’t last, it’s just product fed to you by the industry.

Love is only one of many passions.

I just kept touring and touring until it became second nature to go onstage, perform, and sing.

You have to be a bastard to make it, and that’s a fact. And the Beatles are the biggest bastards on earth.

Sure, I can get a little bit jealous. The good part about jealousy is that it comes from passion. It’s also the dangerous part and it’s an ugly emotion that hurts.

At the end of the day, who I really and truly am is a little girl who loved to play the piano.

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.

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

I love the natural world – it comes from my culture, which grew out of a people enslaved.

Robert Fripp and I will be recording another LP very soon. It should be even more monotonous than the first one!

It takes up enough of my time and interest just working on comedy. I just enjoy it and love doing it.

I always felt that if I was going to do a movie, I wanted it to be authentic.

I want to be a recording artist for my whole entire life. But Broadway is something I would come back to at any given moment. I love, love, love doing theater.

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.

It didn’t even occur to me that I’m the last person in the world who should play salsa or Brazilian music.

I try to really capitalize off of what other rappers really can’t do. There are opportunities that rappers I love simply can’t get, because… you know… I don’t have the tattoos; I have a different image.

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

I’ve been a huge fan of Chris Martin forever; it’d be awesome to work with him. He’s really kind, and he’s been really encouraging when we’ve met.

The book that convinced me I wanted to be a writer was ‚Crime and Punishment‘. I put the thing down after reading it in a fever over two or three days… I said, ‚If this is what a book can be, then that is what I want to do.‘

To not follow your passion in life is a recipe for failure and unhappiness.

If your culture doesn’t like geeks, you are in real trouble.

I’m not into albums that are meant to sound perfect.

It’s passionately interesting for me that the things that I learned in a small town, in a very modest home, are just the things that I believe have won the election.

It’s kind of exhilarating, walking through a crazy, insane mob. The most miraculous process is watching a song go from a tiny idea in the middle of the night to something that 55,000 people are singing back to you.

Until it’s on the radio or online, it’s not real. With U2, our album isn’t finished until it’s in the stores.

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

America is just downright mean.

I’ve been in the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus since I was 8.

The game is changing with songs like ‚Earned It‘ as opposed to it changing me.

Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

Skill is the unified force of experience, intellect and passion in their operation.

Fighting football, not serenity football – that is what I like.

I don’t think anyone ever plans to change line-ups, but it’s something that comes with being in bands. I was in a band once and there were always problems – members come and go – and some of the world’s biggest bands have changed line-ups loads!

The presence of passion within you is the greatest gift you can receive. Treat it as a miracle.

When I was performing the songs on ‚Kiss Land,‘ it was a great singalong. But there were moments where I realized some parts were catchier than the others. There’s maybe two choruses on all of ‚Kiss Land.‘

I always wanted to operate at the highest altitude, just in terms of hip-hop and the music.

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.

I should like to lie at your feet and die in your arms.