I was always singing but didn’t plan on pursuing it seriously. When I got to New York City when I was 18, I started playing in clubs in Brooklyn – I have good friends and devoted fans on the underground scene, but we were playing for each other at that point – and that was it.

Music is the melody whose text is the world.

Nothing feels better than going onstage and everybody is singing every word – and actually wanting to see you.

What really motivates people at Facebook is building something that’s worthwhile, that they’re going to be proud to show to friends and family.

I’d like to do a completely off-the-wall collaboration. I would like one of my songs to be the hook to a rap song. That would be so much fun!

I don’t know if it’s changing already with ‚Joanne,‘ but my intention is to bring people together that don’t know each other and that would maybe feel awkward, but somehow be brought together by the music. That’s what I wanted to do. Because that is pure and authentic to my family history and what I stand for.

It’s important to love in hip hop.

You pick up some fans and a handful of haters along the way.

Some people are making music just for numbers and views.

I was very blessed to have family and friends, but particularly family, who told me I was not only all right, I was just right, so I believe that my brain is a good one, and it’s lasting me very well.

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

Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.

I don’t take pictures when I’m with my kids, for the sake of my kids. It’s important when you’re as busy as I am that you give your kids your time when you’re with them, and nothing compromises that. I’ve been lucky enough to have fans that understand that.

I’m definitely gaining new fans, and that’s the key of any success… gain more love.

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 used to – my earliest memory of waking up with a melody in my head was, you know, 8, 9, 10. I’ve always heard kind of melodies in my head.

I always wanted to know, and I always used to daydream, about what it would be like to stand on a really big stage and sing songs for a lot of people, songs that I had written… Daydreaming was kind of my No. 1 thing when I was little, because I didn’t have much of a social life going on.

I need music. It’s like my heartbeat, so to speak. It keeps me going no matter what’s going on – bad games, press, whatever!

Hawaiian music is beautiful and simple.

When it comes down to it, glam rock was all very amusing. At the time, it was funny, then a few years later it became sort of serious-looking and a bit foreboding.

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.‘

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.

Doo-wop is special music to me because it’s so straightforward and melody-driven and captures emotions.

Music is the art of the prophets and the gift of God.

I pay attention to lyrics and I know what rap fans care about. I try to write for the average listener and I’m conscious of the mainstream without selling out.

You can’t always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream.

I don’t just listen to rap.

Puerto Rico’s relationship with music is everything. It’s an island full of talent and if you grow up there, you grow up living and breathing music.

Together with a culture of work, there must be a culture of leisure as gratification. To put it another way: people who work must take the time to relax, to be with their families, to enjoy themselves, read, listen to music, play a sport.

Most people wouldn’t know music if it came up and bit them on the ass.

I really appreciate the moments that I was able to win rap album of the year or whatever.

My nails are my rhythm section when I’m writing a song all alone. Some day, I may cut an album, just me and my nails.

All that the future holds in store for each sacred child of God will be shaped by his or her parents, family, friends, and teachers. Thus, our faith now becomes part of our posterity’s faith later.

What makes a song last is real content from a mind that is thinking a little bit harder about certain things. A lot of artists don’t really think that hard.

I hate the idea of genres.

I love being a part of the country-music community.

I think love is one of the purest things you can sing about. One of the best things you can sing about.

Rap was more of a release for me, a journal.

All of my friends who have younger siblings who are going to college or high school – my number one piece of advice is: You should learn how to program.

I need drama in my life to keep making music.

If I was just a fan of music, I would think that I was the number one artist in the world.

Songs don’t have to be about going out on Saturday night and having a good rink-up and driving home and crashing cars. A lot of what I’ve done is about alienation… about where you fit in society.

U2’s best work has always been when we didn’t know what we’re doing.

My grandmother took me to church on Sunday all day long, every Sunday into the night. Then Monday evening was the missionary meeting. Tuesday evening was usher board meeting. Wednesday evening was prayer meeting. Thursday evening was visit the sick. Friday evening was choir practice. I mean, and at all those gatherings, we sang.

I can’t make a song for a particular person or demographic. If I love it, I’m gonna do it. I have to perform it for the rest of my life. A song is like a tattoo – you can never get away from it.

I feel like I was writing as I was learning to talk. Writing was always a go-to form of communication. And I knew I could sing from being in tune with the radio.

Sitting on a bedroom floor crying is something that makes you feel really alone. If someone’s singing about that feeling, you feel bonded to that person.

I went through all the musicians in my life who I admire as bright, intelligent, virtuosic players.

Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.

I’ve always loved the fans in Scotland and have a little Scottish blood of my own.

When I joined Nirvana, I was the fifth or sixth drummer – I don’t know if they’d ever had a drummer they were totally happy with. And they were strangers. There was never much of a deeper connection outside of the music.

‚Nothin‘ on You‘ by B.o.B was the first song where I heard myself on the radio. I’d been trying my whole career to write a song like that, which incorporates live instruments with hip-hop and singing.

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.

I tried to give the world a bit of creativity, lyrics. And for me, I will always represent music from Puerto Rico, reggaeton, Latin music.

In the 1960s, people were trying to get away from the pop song format. Tracks were getting longer, or much, much shorter.

I don’t feel much pressure to fit in. I never have. I’ve always just wanted to do my thing. I have really good friends and good family, and if I don’t fit in somewhere else, I fit in at home.

Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk?

I play piano and ukulele, and I taught myself those things just because I wanted to play them.

I’ve conducted the Boston Pops! Imagine that! Me! Maya Angelou! I’ve sang and danced at La Scala!

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.

Most of those melodies are me trying to find out what notes fit, and then hitting ones that don’t fit in a very interesting way.