I wouldn’t call myself a synaesthete in the sense that Nabokov was. But I’ll talk about a sound as being cold blue or dark brown. For descriptive purposes, yes, I often see colors when I’m listening to music and think, ‚Oh, there’s not enough sort of yellowy stuff in here, or not enough white.‘

I want you to feel happy and enjoy the theatre of my life the way that I do. No matter what happens with my music and wherever I go – that heart of that glamorous girl in New York will never be gone.

Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world.

Doing the box set is one of those things where you get to rewrite your own history to some extent. We could take out some of the songs that we felt weren’t as strong as some of the others, so you look better.

I still wanna rap better than everybody else, and I wanna say important things.

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.

The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it’s not going to happen. I’m fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years.

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.

The thing that will never go away is that connection you make with a band or a song where you’re moved by the fact that it’s real people making music. You make that human connection with a song like ‚Let It Be‘ or ‚Long and Winding Road‘ or a song like ‚Bohemian Rhapsody‘ or ‚Roxanne,‘ any of those songs. They sound like people making music.

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 make good music for long journeys.

Until it’s on the radio or online, it’s not real. With U2, our album isn’t finished until it’s in the stores.

It is only in his music, which Americans are able to admire because a protective sentimentality limits their understanding of it, that the Negro in America has been able to tell his story.

If I’m inspired to make a certain kind of song, I’m going to make that kind of song, no matter if it’s what they know me as or think I am.

To all the musicians, to the Academy, with all due respect, reggaeton is part of our Latin culture. And its representing as much as any other genre at the worldwide level.

I don’t like the name, U2, actually.

We don’t make music – it makes us.

When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily I should have been in that band – or at least in a Pixies cover band.

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

I play piano every day. I enjoy that.

The Heads were the only band on that scene that had a groove.

Thirty-three-years-old, still creating art. It’s rage, it’s creativity, it’s pain, it’s hurt, but it’s the opportunity to still have my voice get out there through music.

Music helps me tell my story. That’s where I can really be heard. But there’s so much focus on the things that aren’t music.

One of the benefits of playing to small audiences in small clubs for a few years is that you’re allowed to fail.

You can write a song about being in love with someone, but you don’t have to be in love with anyone.

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

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

I feel like in my music I can be a rebel. I can say things I wouldn’t say in real life.

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

Music is always a commentary on society.

A lot of people don’t realise I came out of the Smoky Mountains with a load of songs.

Five or six songs leaked from the original version of ‚Encore.‘ So I had to go in and make new songs to replace them.

When I do listen to music, I’m more prone to listen to the people I’ve always listened to: George Jones, Otis Redding, Alison Krauss and Emmylou Harris.

Dropkick Murphys get me going, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana… plus, all the regular hip-hop stuff.

Pretty much my whole life, I’ve been a performer and have loved singing and writing songs in my room for my own ears.

I would like to do a duet with Taylor Hanson, because I have loved Hanson since I was 8.

What I like about music is the songs you can remember the lines of in a single second.

I think ‚Invisible‘ is a great song, but I don’t know how accessible it is.

Music is not math. It’s science. You keep mixing the stuff up until it blows up on you, or it becomes this incredible potion.

Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music.

I want to keep making records as long as I can, but I don’t know how long you can be taken seriously in rap.

I love story songs because I’ve always loved books.

Punk is musical freedom. It’s saying, doing and playing what you want. In Webster’s terms, ‚nirvana‘ means freedom from pain, suffering and the external world, and that’s pretty close to my definition of Punk Rock.

I wanted to be in a punk band before I had even heard any punk music.

I always say, you gotta play a dive bar like you play an arena, and you play an arena like you play a dive bar.

So there’s no guarantee if you like the music you will empathize with the culture and the people who made it. It doesn’t necessarily happen. I think it can, but it doesn’t necessarily happen. Which is kind of a shame.

Music keeps the heart porous in many ways.

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

I don’t know which will go first – rock ‚n‘ roll or Christianity.

It’s very fun to be the hunter of the sounds. The hunter of the right energy. And it’s not really about if every sound is correct; it’s more the energy – if it hits you in some way, it doesn’t really matter to me if it’s not perfect. I’m still very excited while hunting for songs.

I can’t see myself singing the same song twice in a row. That’s terrible.

Funk, I don’t think I have anything to do with funk. I’ve never considered myself funky.

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

I always use Michael as, first and foremost, a vocal inspiration, and ‚Off the Wall‘ was definitely the one that made me feel like I could sing.

I find that when I get on stage now, I don’t want to perform a lot of my songs because they don’t feel like me. So I want to make songs that are timeless.

We tend to mistake music for the physical object.

Environment is very important to me. Sometimes I have to perform during the day for festivals, and my music does not work in the daytime. It is nighttime music.

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

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

I wish all teenagers can filter through songs instead of turning to drugs and alcohol.

If I’m gonna write songs about my exes, they can write songs about me. That’s how it works.