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

When I won the first Grammy, there was no other feeling like that feeling. It just made me feel like I came so far, like that was just a dream a few years before that, and then it was happening right then.

I decided to pursue music, so I dropped out of school and I told my parents I didn’t want any money from them. I got three jobs and I just hit the ground running.

If I’d had good discipline, I might have gone into music.

People – especially white people – they want me to be a role model just because of the life I lead. The things I say in my songs, they expect it of me.

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

Factoring in millions of people when I’m writing a song is not a good idea. I don’t ever do it.

I don’t know anything about music. In my line you don’t have to.

I didn’t have nothin‘ going for me… school, home… until I found something I loved, which was music, and that changed everything.

Now, we are selling over 5 million songs a day now. Isn’t that unbelievable? That’s 58 songs every second of every minute of every hour of every day.

I always wrote poetry and stuff like that, so putting songs together wasn’t that spectacular.

‚Wrecking Ball‘ is a great song.

The effect of music on fashion has been immense, especially hip-hop and urban music.

I used to write random little stupid things when I was five, but then the first song I really wrote was one called ‚Fingers Crossed,‘ which is on SoundCloud.

‚Trilogy‘ was more of a claustrophobic body of work. Before it was released, I hadn’t left my city for 21 years, and I had never been on a plane, not once. I spent my entire life on one setting; that’s probably why pieces of the album feel like one long track, because that’s what my life felt like. It felt like one long song.

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

I hope that what you take away from my album is not just the music – which I did want to be fun, and I did want it to be about individuality, but please also take away from it that there’s no dream that’s too big.

I sing and play the guitar, and I’m a walking, talking bacterial infection.

People should just buy a CD and rip it. You are legal then.

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.

We have a Boesendorfer piano that I play every day. It keeps my brain and my fingers active.

I really love Linkin Park, and I loved Chester Bennington, and it is horrible what happened to him. I grew up listening to him because my dad would make these mixtapes with a lot of different artists – Linkin Park, Avril Lavigne, The Beatles, Sarah McLachlan, I just really loved Linkin Park, and their production is really sick.

I was the only kid who anybody I knew has ever seen actually walk into a lamppost with his eyes wide open. Everybody assumed that there must be something going on inside, because there sure as hell wasn’t anything going on the outside!

If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that… I believe in what I do, and I’ll say it.

I think ABBA have a pure joy to their music and that’s what makes them extraordinary.

Taylor Swift’s audience can listen to me, but so can the street kids. I want to touch it all.

When I write, I can shake off all my cares.

I’d love to do a duet, always wanted to work with Madonna, but she never asked.

I’m just writing, writing, writing. I keep these tablets on me until I’m inspired to go back in and make the music. I never take a break from my pen, because I pride myself on that.

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

One of the interesting things about having little musical knowledge is that you generate surprising results sometimes; you move to places you wouldn’t if you knew better.

I consider myself to have one of the greatest voices in the industry.

Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something.

Music is in my DNA!

I’ve always felt music is the only way to give an instantaneous moment the feel of slow motion. To romanticise it and glorify it and give it a soundtrack and a rhythm.

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!

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.

When I was a teenager, my biggest lessons came from Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, George Strait, Rascal Flatts and Brad Paisley. I learned so much from opening up for those artists, and it also taught me how to treat your opening acts and make them feel like they’re part of a family, not just a tour.

I don’t know how the rap game is, because I’m a fan of reality, and the rap game’s entertainment.

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

I cannot with any real integrity perform songs I’ve done for 25 years. I don’t need the money. What I need is to feel that I am not letting myself down as an artist and that I still have something to contribute.

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.

I know a lot of artists say this, but it’s hard to put myself in a box. I just write songs that I strongly believe in and that are coming form a special place. There’s no tricks.

Your personal history is a part of what happens with your hands and your head as you play music.

Obviously this song is an achievement for me in my career, but what makes me really feel good is to make Latinos feel proud. To provoke that pride that a pop figure and someone so big in music globally like Drake would sing with me completely in Spanish and create this hit ‚MIA.‘ That’s the best part of it.

All of my music is honest.

The only person who ever called me Paul was my father, so I always associate it with doing something wrong, you know. So, you know, occasionally, people will come up to me on the street and try to, you know, ingratiate themselves and call me Paul. I don’t like it, actually.

Here’s the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don’t find it anywhere else.

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.

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

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

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

When I was a kid, I went to the store and asked the guy, Do you have any toy train schedules?

I still have my first paycheck. It was just, I think, a dollar or two that I got when I started as a songwriter with BMI, and I had some songs there that I had through the company, and in the mail I got this big old check for, like, a dollar and a half or something. Somebody had recorded one of my songs.

My songs are the door to every dream I’ve ever had and every success I’ve ever achieved.

All Montreal bands have around nine members, I believe.

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

I look at other people’s lives, and some people feel like they’re too old to play with toys. But I still go through the toy section at the store, ‚cause there were toys that I wanted when I was little that I couldn’t have. So I still get them.

When I was a little boy in school I had to dress up as a bunny and there’s a picture of me with an annoyed face, and when I saw it, I thought I should name myself ‚Bad Bunny.‘

Hawaiian music is beautiful and simple.

My whole life, I’ve sung and listened to music, and since the beginning, I’ve had iTunes and used Apple Music for streaming.