I wrote a song with Ed Sheeran that was kind of spontaneous.

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

Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.

You just don’t wake up one day and decide that you need to write songs.

Working with a guy like Ice Cube on ‚Ride Along,‘ you learn so much. He’s a guy who produces, writes, and directs, so you watch and learn and ask questions. As you go, you learn and figure out what you should and shouldn’t do. I do nothing but soak up information.

Every sin is the result of a collaboration.

When I was writing the Destiny’s Child songs, it was a big thing to be that young and taking control. And the label at the time didn’t know that we were going to be that successful, so they gave us all control. And I got used to it.

I’ve got incredible support from my wife and family and people around me. I’ve got great people around me who handle anything on the outside, business-wise, who help free me up to create in my job.

China and the U.S. need each other very badly. Yes, we should argue about some things, but it’s not an ‚us versus them,‘ it’s an ‚us and them‘ type scenario.

When individual members of the team are highly disciplined, they can be trusted and, therefore, allowed to operate with very little oversight.

Writing ‚We Are Never Getting Back Together‘ was one of the most hilarious experiences I have ever had in the studio because it just happened so naturally.

The most genius thing about the way I create is to create with other geniuses.

I think songwriting is the ultimate form of being able to make anything that happens in your life productive.

I push myself in a lot of aspects when I write a song. I write a piece and where most people would stop and say, ‚Oh, that’s the hook right there,‘ I’ll move that to the first four bars of the verse and do a new hook.

We will explore the mysteries of science and harness the power of technology and innovation. We will realise the opportunities of the digital world. Our youth will learn more from – and with – each other.

Unless I am both capable of and willing to reopen the wound every time I write a song, if I choose to not look inside myself to write music, I’m really not worth being called an artist at all.

And if you’re horrible to me I’m going to write a song about you and you are not going to like it. That’s how I operate.

I spend a lot of time just, you know, with my girlfriend and my dog. And I mean, we don’t have a lot of furniture in our house, so it’s really simple. And we’re trying to build products for everyone in the world, right. And you don’t want to get isolated to do that.

Getting a great idea with song writing is a lot like love. You don’t know why this one is different, but it is. You don’t know why this one is better, but it is. It sticks in your head, and you can’t stop thinking about it.

Nobody’s indispensable.

At Microsoft there are lots of brilliant ideas but the image is that they all come from the top – I’m afraid that’s not quite right.

All of my records, I produced, put together completely. All of them. Maybe Drake might come with an idea, and I might finish it. You gotta remember what a producer is. Quincy Jones is a producer.

Every bad situation is a blues song waiting to happen.

If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.

I think that, whatever happens, I’m just happy I’ve written those songs and I’ve made an album. That’s really big for me, and I’m proud of that.

The amount of trust and bandwidth that you build up working with someone for five, seven, 10 years? It’s just awesome. I care about openness and connectedness in a global sense.

‚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.

I really started writing music to challenge myself, to see what I could write.

I usually write lyrics first, and then when I get home or close to any kind of instrument, I usually make a melody for those lyrics.

The lessons from the peace process are clear; whatever life throws at us, our individual responses will be all the stronger for working together and sharing the load.

With pop music, the format dictates the form to a big degree. Just think of the pop single. It has endured as a form even in the download age because bands conform to a strict format, and work, often very productively, within the parameters.

Neither sex, without some fertilization of the complimentary characters of the other, is capable of the highest reaches of human endeavor.

My fate cannot be mastered; it can only be collaborated with and thereby, to some extent, directed. Nor am I the captain of my soul; I am only its noisiest passenger.

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.

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it.

I just wanted to be a songwriter. I did really not like the sound of my own voice.

I’m a pretty funny guy, and I would love to do a comedy with a bunch of funny guys – movie-star guys, where they could help me through it.

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.

The great thieves lead away the little thief.

I like to work with artists from around the world. There are so many new inspiring filmmakers.

Every relationship should eventually become a long-term relationship. Any director that I meet now isn’t just a director. He’s potentially a friend, and someone I can call to do a project that I want or that I have.

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.

My model for business is The Beatles: They were four guys that kept each others‘ negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts.

It’s kind of like a challenge to myself to be able to hear somebody else’s hook and kind of interpret the words. Because my own hooks, I already know what I mean when I write them.

Investing for the poor requires participation from the entire community.

The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community.

For me, writing a song, I sit down and the process doesn’t really involve me thinking about the demographic of people I’m trying to hit or who I want to be able to relate to the song or what genre of music it falls under.

I can write a song in about an hour if it’s a simple country song.

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.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help… Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.

I just try to write songs that people are going to have a dialogue about.

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.

For some reason, I have better luck when I work with women. I guess I have a good sense of sisterhood.

I think, generally, I just cannot really envision life without writing and producing records and singing.

I’ve written all my songs on every single one of my records, and that’s what’s been fun about looking back.

We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.

I have a different vision of leadership. A leadership is someone who brings people together.

You gotta make sure the listener is listening to you, so if you put it into a song, often times, if the song is striking enough, then you can really deliver the story most effectively while keeping the ear of the listener the whole time.

No person will make a great business who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit.

The world is full of willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.

I’ve always written songs the same way. You learn different tricks – you learn craft, you learn structure, all that – as you go.