I wanted to be famous for my music and my talent, and I always wished I could cut it out when I left the stage.

I get really restless when I haven’t worked for a day and a half. I have a recurring dream that people are lined up next to my bed, waiting for autographs and taking pictures of me!

I wear a hat on stage so that people won’t be blinded by the reflection from my head. Also, if I don’t wear a hat, there’s no way that the hat can be at that level by itself on the stage.

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 like being able to be on the inside of music, rather than on the outside listening to it.

Black or white good parts are hard to come by. A good actor with a good opportunity has a shot; without the opportunity it doesn’t matter how good you are.

To the audience, it’s like I’m changing the subject every five seconds, but to me, my show’s almost like a 90-minute song that I know exactly. I wrote every note, and I know exactly where everything is.

When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.

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!

Mick Fleetwood was one of my first interviews. And if you’ve ever talked to that dude, he’s the sweetest guy in the world – he’s just a trip.

So many girls come up and say to me, ‚I have never listened to country music in my life. I didn’t even know my town had a country-music station. Then I got your record, and now I’m obsessed.‘ That’s the coolest compliment to me.

I’ve been talked about by a lot better people than the general public.

I’d love it if everyone knew one Foo Fighters song.

These critics with the illusions they’ve created about artists – it’s like idol worship. They only like people when they’re on their way up… I cannot be on the way up again.

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.

Fame is fickle, and I know it. It has its compensations but it also has its drawbacks, and I’ve experienced them both.

That’s why I hate to get started in these jam sessions. I’m always the last one to leave.

I like to read books. I like to listen to music.

Music keeps the heart porous in many ways.

I’ve never had that much trouble with the paparazzi, but I don’t run the same circles that a lot of these people that do get hounded by the paparazzi.

John Lennon was definitely my favorite Beatle, hands down.

No press, no television. If my mom calls and says, ‚Did you hear about?‘ I don’t want to know nothing about anything that is going on in relation to music. I shut it all off.

If you talk bad about country music, it’s like saying bad things about my momma. Them’s fightin‘ words.

During my school days, I was doing a play, and my costume fell on the stage. I really wish it didn’t happen.

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

‚In Utero‘ was the first time I’d made an album that reached into the dark side. I remember the conflict and the uncertainty. I remember all those things when I hear ‚Pennyroyal Tea.‘

Hell is full of musical amateurs.

I booked my first studio at like 12 or 13. Somewhere in that season of my life, singing along with the radio became me wanting to be on radio, you know.

When I’m writing, I’m thinking about how the songs are going to play live. Fifty bars of rap don’t translate onstage. No matter how potent the music, you lose the crowd. They want a hook; they want to sing your stuff back to you.

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

I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name.

When you listen to Ray Charles, there’s never any doubt whose voice that is.

I’ve never wanted to use my age as a gimmick, as something that would get me ahead of other people. I’ve wanted the music to do that.

Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.

I was part of Jazzercise class. It was an aerobics routine accompanied by loud music, sounding quite awful to me. Jazzercise was popular in the ’80s and ’90s.

Overnight stardom can be harmful to your mental health. Yeah. It has ruined a lot of people.

People are already finding ways to make their music and play it in front of people and have a life in music, I guess, and I think that’s pretty much all you can ask.

Music is something no one can control.

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.

Whenever I write a novel, music just sort of naturally slips in (much like cats do, I suppose).

In Puerto Rico we dance to everything.

I wish myself to be a prop, if anything, for my songs. I want to be the vehicle for my songs. I would like to colour the material with as much visual expression as is necessary for that song.

We based the look on rock ‚n roll right from the beginning.

I hope when I’m dead I’ll be considered an icon, though.

I’ve accomplished enough with the music that I haven’t had to go out there and do other things to over-saturate.

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

I try to sprinkle a little gems and jewels in the music that people could use in their own life.

I hate being called an ‚icon.‘ I just don’t like it. That’s all there is to it.

If people take anything from my music, it should be motivation to know that anything is possible as long as you keep working at it and don’t back down.

‚Jolene‘ has been very popular all of these years, even overseas.

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.

Music is always a commentary on society.

I always wanted more – more of everything.

We tend to mistake music for the physical object.

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

To be honest, I never really considered myself to be too much of an actress. So, whenever I get the chance to do music, I’m always, like, just in it. It’s like, ‚Oh my God, I finally get to do this. I’m so happy.‘

My audience went, ‚Wait, why is she singing jazz? What’s going on?‘ And then they went, ‚Oh, because she can. Because she loves it.‘ And jazz, a music invented by the African-American community, is the greatest art form, I believe, to have ever come out of this country.

I have so many playlists full of Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, Chris Brown.

I’ve always tended to write songs prolifically.

I think I don’t take myself too seriously. You know as far as, it’s a fun life. I take my music serious, but I like to have fun.

I don’t sing because I’m happy; I’m happy because I sing.