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

I know people said I wasn’t selling out in America, but that was entirely untrue. We sold out all over the world, and every night I looked out into the fans and those front rows that you’re talking about, the tears, the honesty, the inability to not be completely overjoyed because they felt accepted.

I think it’s really cool when artists have song titles or album names that are a really conversational sentence.

No press, no television. If my mom calls and says, ‚Did you hear about?‘ I don’t want to know nothing about anything that is going on in relation to music. I shut it all off.

I get a more passionate delivery when I just go in the booth and let the music talk.

Growing up, my grandmother did not want worldly music in the house. Then when I went out to California, I started listening to Spanish music, mostly Mexican music. But were I in Egypt, I would listen to the music of the people, or if I was in Italy, I’d listen to Italian music.

There are certain sounds that I’ve found work well in nearly any context. Their function is not so much musical as spatial: they define the edges of the territory of the music.

The fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.

It was that famous joke: What’s the last thing the drummer said before he got kicked out of the band? ‚Hey, I wrote a song.‘

In my songs, I’m not saying something that’s never been said before. The have lyrics aren’t going to blow people away. It’s the emotion and the melody that drive it home.

No, I can’t do rap music!

Music is my shining light, my favorite thing in the world. T get me to stop doing it for one second would be difficult!

Every day, my mom and I would watch a different Judy Garland VHS. I love how she tells a story when she sings. It was just about her voice and the words she was singing – no strings attached or silly hair or costumes, just a woman singing her heart out. I feel like that doesn’t happen that much anymore.

I just think people should invest in the world. Don’t invest in fashion, but invest in the world.

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.

Songs are my diaries; they always have been. You have to put your trust in everyone because putting down those real, personal details and thoughts that make a song authentic also opens you right up. I am constantly misunderstood; a lot of people just don’t get me.

I enjoy singing my songs in front of people. I enjoy being involved in making the artwork for albums and stupid stuff like that.

I’m a trained fine artist. I went to art school from the time I was 5 years old. I was, like, a prodigy out of Chicago. I’d been in national competitions from the age of 14.

Anybody that doesn’t like Cardi B a hater!

Singing aloud leaves you with a sense of levity and contentedness.

I feel that when you care about your music, taking risks is something you should do to keep things exciting.

This thing that I do with caring about the message in my music, it’s not separate from my work as a commercial artist; they’re totally one and the same. I’m always going to be thinking about what my voice means.

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.

I’m not a very creative person, you know? I’m not really an art person. I’m not a great reader or writer or artist or musician.

We based the look on rock ‚n roll right from the beginning.

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

It doesn’t bother me when people try to deconstruct my songs – because at least they’re looking at the lyrics, and paying attention to the way the story is told.

Lyrics are the only thing to do with music that haven’t been made easier technically.

The boys know they’re from Southeast Asia, and they have their food and their music and their friends, and they have a pride particular to them.

We moved into the back, made it into a little 50s sitting room and started to sell the records. We had an immediate success. For one thing, these Teddy Boys were thrilled to buy the records.

My mother is a singer, my sisters all sing, my uncles are incredible singers and guitar players, so it’s just kind of been like my habitat.

Chicago gave me more music than any other city in America.

I could sing you a thousand and one doo-wop songs. I love the simplicity in that music. It’s not super-poetic, it’s just from the heart.

Music is everybody’s possession. It’s only publishers who think that people own it.

A good compromise, a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence; or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, ‚Huh. It works. It makes sense.‘

Man, that record came out and was real big in Memphis. They started playing it, and it got real big. Don’t know why-the lyrics had no meaning.

I don’t care if people think I am an overactor, as long as they enjoy what I do. People who think that would call Van Gogh an overpainter.

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

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.

Writing music is just like writing a book.

I collect records. And cats. I don’t have any cats right now. But if I’m taking a walk and I see a cat, I’m happy.

Hip-hop is ever changing but you’ll always have the pack. And you’ll always have those people who are separated from the pack.

I think I can keep a rhythm to a beat, but there are quite a few people who would argue with me.

You listen to the radio and all the songs sound the same, from 8 in the morning to 12.

My music is influenced by L.A. culture.

My music definitely comes from a place of experience. Everything connects to a truth.

I didn’t want to play it boring and safe. I also didn’t want to innovate too much. Second albums, man, they’re even scarier than first ones.

The thing about hip-hop today is it’s smart, it’s insightful. The way they can communicate a complex message in a very short space is remarkable.

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.

I feel connected to my generation through the music, but I also fear for us. We’re in a very self-destructive state where we’re addicted to outside opinions and we all feel like we have fans.

Even if my songs are quite sad or quite dark, I don’t want my songs to make people sad. It’s very important for me that all my songs have some kind of hope or light.

I want to thank The Beatles for almost single-handedly getting me out of writer’s block.

Every band I’ve worked with also wants to be countercultural in the sense that they want to feel that they’ve gone somewhere that nobody else has been.

Being an artist doesn’t just mean you have a song. That doesn’t make you an artist. The word ‚artist‘ means so many different things, and I feel like to be a real one, you really have to do it all. The people that I think of as artists – Tyler the Creator, Childish Gambino, Kanye West – are doing the most.

When I listen to ‚Nevermind,‘ I hate the production, but there’s something about it that almost makes me cry at times.

Of course, ‚I Will Always Love You‘ is the biggest song so far in my career. I’m famous for several, but that one has been recorded by more people and made me more money, I think, than all of them. But that song did come from a true and deep place in my heart.

Whenever I write a novel, music just sort of naturally slips in (much like cats do, I suppose).

A song is anything that can walk by itself.

In memory everything seems to happen to music.

The true artist is not proud: he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly how far he is from the goal, and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun.

I can’t deny that label-support gave me a leg up – though not every successful artist needs it.