I used to sing songs and write with my uncle, Bill Owens.

If you pour your life into songs, you want them to be heard. It’s a desire to communicate. A deep desire to communicate inspires songwriting.

The vibe on ‚Starboy‘ comes from that hip-hop culture of braggadocio, from Wu-Tang and 50 Cent, the kind of music I listened to as a kid.

I get a thrill meeting kids who are into alternative music.

All of my music is honest.

I write songs about stuff that I can’t really get past personally – and then I write a song about it and I feel better.

Mozart’s music is so pure and beautiful that I see it as a reflection of the inner beauty of the universe.

I collect records. And cats. I don’t have any cats right now. But if I’m taking a walk and I see a cat, I’m happy.

When individual members of the team are highly disciplined, they can be trusted and, therefore, allowed to operate with very little oversight.

Songs for me are like a message in a bottle. You send them out to the world, and maybe the person who you feel that way about will hear about it someday.

I always use the same guitar; I got this guitar years and years ago for nine pounds. It’s still got the same strings on it.

Neither sex, without some fertilization of the complimentary characters of the other, is capable of the highest reaches of human endeavor.

The great thieves lead away the little thief.

Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.

No cricket team in the world depends on one or two players. The team always plays to win.

You listen to the radio and all the songs sound the same, from 8 in the morning to 12.

I worked with Steven Spielberg on Amistad… he seemed so very secure in himself that he let me do things.

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

I sure lost my musical direction in Hollywood. My songs were the same conveyer belt mass production, just like most of my movies were.

My songs are like my children – I expect them to support me when I’m old.

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

As a songwriter, you respect and appreciate the writings of other people, and I often get asked, are there songs out there I wish I’d written? Yes. There’s many of them!

In high school I wanted to be a rock star and was in a lot of bands.

Madonna, I think, is the greatest visual musical artist that we’ve ever had. If you look at her photo log, the photographers that she was able to work with throughout her career framed her in the proper way. It was the proper context. It was that visual that made sure that everything was gonna cut through in a certain way.

I was approached about having my own network many, many years ago. There were some people who wanted to start up a network, and I didn’t want to get that involved in the business aspect of it.

There is something about building up a comradeship – that I still believe is the greatest of all feats – and sharing in the dangers with your company of peers. It’s the intense effort, the giving of everything you’ve got. It’s really a very pleasant sensation.

I am confident that partnering my Dollywood Company with a great company like Gaylord will create something truly special.

When I was in high school, there were these British blues-rock-type bands with really good guitar players that would jam on one song for half an hour. And as much as I was amazed by some of those guitar players, seeing them prompted me to make a note that that’s not something I could do.

I’m a songwriter. Everything affects me.

I just love working hard. I love being part of a team; I love working toward a common goal.

Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.

You know, my sister sings, my brother plays drums in my band. My whole family is a bunch of musicians.

I was very camera shy. People like hot girls, so I put my music to hot girls and it just became a trend. The whole ‚enigmatic artist‘ thing, I just ran with it. No one could find pictures of me.

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

I’m a big fan of songs like Joe Cocker’s ‚You Are So Beautiful‘ and Eric Clapton’s ‚Wonderful Tonight‘ – songs that go straight to the point.

It’s important to love in hip hop.

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

I love the song ‚I Hope You Dance‘ by Lee Ann Womack. I was going to write that song, but someone beat me to it.

I really am a fan of Ye’s music.

I sang a song at my sister’s wedding. My mother forced me into that, too. But that one felt all right.

Most country songs, certainly all the stuff I’ve written, are stories driven by characters.

The first four and a half years was me in the studio every day, writing songs for other people. I had jobs, too – eleven jobs. I worked at Kinko’s, Fatburger, Subway – I was a sandwich artist – and I was a claims processor at Allstate Insurance.

What we achieve individually is important but it’s never ever more than the team does.

The greatest progress is in the sciences that study the simplest systems. So take, say, physics – greatest progress there. But one of the reasons is that the physicists have an advantage that no other branch of sciences has. If something gets too complicated, they hand it to someone else.

When I put out ‚Video Games‘ in May 2011, it was a 5:25-minute love song; I was surprised when a lot of people said they were listening to it. I was surprised when it went to the radio, without me even knowing how something like that even happens!

An operatic voice is like no other.

Music fills in for words a lot of the time when people don’t know what to say, and I think music can be more eloquent than words.

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.

I think songwriting is the ultimate form of being able to make anything that happens in your life productive.

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 don’t listen to the radio very much, but that could be because I don’t have a car.

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

I enjoy singing my songs in front of people. I enjoy being involved in making the artwork for albums and stupid stuff like that.

Where I come from it was really unheard of to be at a party and someone says, ‚What kind of music do you make?‘, and you say, ‚Pop music.‘ You may as well have ‚I’m not cool‘ stamped on your forehead.

I’m pretty sure I don’t have any songs that are about how much I love someone. They’re all either about, like, ‚I hate you,‘ or ‚You make me hate me.‘

We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.

Working with a lot of people at the same time is a task. I really like making stuff and getting stuff done. One of the things I really liked about Facebook was that I could always move so quickly. I wrote the original application in, like, nine days at the end of January.

I ain’t here to argue about his facial features. Or here to convert atheists into believers. I’m just trying to say the way school need teachers the way Kathie Lee needed Regis that’s the way yall need Jesus.

The most genius thing about the way I create is to create with other geniuses.

Music is one of the most powerful things the world has to offer. No matter what race or religion or nationality or sexual orientation or gender that you are, it has the power to unite us.

I’m an iPod person.