I would drive to gigs in my tiny little Fiat. I would shoot up and down the M1 to play at various places.

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.

I’m a painter in sound.

In Paris, you’re as far as possible from the land of pleasant smiles.

No one sells a song better than the person that wrote it.

My fans don’t feel like I hold anything back from them. They know whatever I’m going through now, they’ll hear about it on a record someday. They’ll hear the real story. There’s a little bit of lag time. It’s not as instant as going on a gossip blog. But it’s much more accurate.

Some people are making music just for numbers and views.

Mariah and Whitney Houston were my goddesses growing up.

Everyone carries his own inch rule of taste, and amuses himself by applying it, triumphantly, wherever he travels.

Africa is probably one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.

I hate the idea of genres.

Paris ain’t much of a town.

I guess you could say I devoted myself so strongly to my music that for awhile I forgot about my family. But I only get one set of parents, and I think I forgot about that for a little while.

I love California, I practically grew up in Phoenix.

No one tells me what to do with my music. Real. My mom doesn’t tell what to say, how is someone else going to?

You know why Foo Fighters have been a band for 20 years? Because I’ve never really told anybody what I think of them. The last thing you ever want to do is go to therapy with your band.

Hong Kong is a wonderful, mixed-up town where you’ve got great food and adventure. First and foremost, it’s a great place to experience China in a relatively accessible way.

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.‘

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.

I want more of my favorite artists or more of the guy that makes the anthems. I want more.

I always say this about my music, and music in general: Music is like a time capsule. Each album reflects what I’m going through or what’s going on in my life at that moment.

All I really had was a suitcase and my drums. So I took them up to Seattle and hoped it would work.

It’s terrifying to play your favorite band’s song in front of your favorite band.

I sang a lot of low stuff on songs like ‚Secrets‘ and ‚Rockin‘,‘ almost like Toni Braxton. On ‚Secrets,‘ I’m a different person.

Wherever I go, as long as I get a hot vegetable dish, I am okay. If I am in Gujarat, I have Gujarati food. If it’s Shillong, it’s northeastern.

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

I don’t like to feel like I’m in a club when I’m in my car and I turn on the radio. Anything that ceases to be a song and just sounds like house music kind of stresses me out.

When we’re falling in love or out of it, that’s when we most need a song that says how we feel. Yeah, I write a lot of songs about boys. And I’m very happy to do that.

For the execution of the voyage to the Indies, I did not make use of intelligence, mathematics or maps.

I alone of English writers have consciously set myself to make music out of what I may call the sound of sense.

If I can give you one strong piece of advice, when you go away for that romantic weekend, whatever you do, do not accept or take the upgrade to the honeymoon suite.

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.

I still make sure to go, at least once every year, to a country where things cannot be taken for granted, and where there is either too much law and order or too little.

I don’t know how to function without music. When I’m not making it, I’m listening to it. It gives me courage and takes care of my mind.

However, there’s no theme or concept behind Heathen, just a number of songs but somehow there is a thread that runs through it that is quite as strong as any of my thematic type albums.

I play piano every day. I enjoy that.

The worst way of flying, I think, is standby. It never works. That’s why they call it standby. You end up standing there going, ‚Bye!‘

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.

Fuel prices are at the center of our lives. They affect our ability to travel, stay warm, and feed ourselves.

Having listened to great songwriters like James Taylor and Carole King, I felt there was nothing new that was coming out that really represented me and the way I felt. So I started writing my own stuff.

I was a super-duper Tupac fan, and I realized later, when I became a huge Nas fan and a huge Eminem fan, I was drawn to the storytellers. They all told stories in different ways, but they were all like the best storytellers.

How to play music may be known. At the commencement of the piece, all the parts should sound together. As it proceeds, they should be in harmony while severally distinct and flowing without break, and thus on to the conclusion.

I want my fans to love themselves. It’s almost like I want to hypnotize them so when they hear my music they love themselves instantly.

I’m not a supermodel. That’s not what I do. What I do is music. I want my fans to feel the way I do, to know what they have to offer is just as important, more important, than what’s happening on the outside.

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

Life is an unfoldment, and the further we travel the more truth we can comprehend. To understand the things that are at our door is the best preparation for understanding those that lie beyond.

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

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.

Contrary to popular belief, I don’t spend a whole lot of time following soccer. But as I have traveled around the world to better understand global development and health, I’ve learned that soccer is truly universal. No matter where I go, that’s what kids are playing. That’s what people are talking about.

One of the triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement is that when you travel through the South today, you do not feel overwhelmed by a residue of grievance and hate.

Music for me, it demands full concentration.

I do value the respect I get from my contemporaries, but to have Oasis cover my song, to have Puff Daddy cover a song, to have Goldie come along to my gigs – that’s where my ego is at. To have my fellow musicians like what I do, that’s very cool.

I’ll live in Puerto Rico until the day I die.

If you want to go somewhere, it is best to find someone who has already been there.

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. And writing Langston Hughes replica poems became me wanting to write like Stevie Wonder.

Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.

Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience.

My favourite car I drove in the ‚shoot out‘ at Silverstone was the 2016 Mercedes DTM car. I loved every moment in it, the downforce being particularly surprising.

I think what made it difficult for people to get, and still makes it difficult for people to get, is the theatrical nature of the work and the fact that, my music doesn’t exist without the performance-art element.

I don’t even listen to rap. My apartment is too nice to listen to rap in.

Writing for other artists helped me figure out that magic you have to capture to make everyone connect with a song.