I’m a huge fan of R. Kelly’s. He’s a musical genius and probably the most prolific artist of the generation before mine.

If it’s good music, it’s good music.

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.

There is only one position for an artist anywhere; and that is upright.

It’s not essential for me to have a big debut week; it’s not essential for me to have big radio records.

I’m not claiming divinity. I’ve never claimed purity of soul. I’ve never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can… But I still believe in peace, love and understanding.

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

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

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

I wish I could play bass like Larry Graham or Bootsy Collins. My God, I’d give up just about everything else for that.

Animals, in their generation, are wiser than the sons of men; but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass.

Fans are my favorite thing in the world. I’ve never been the type of artist who has that line drawn between their friends and their fans. The line’s always been really blurred for me. I’ll hang out with them after the show. I’ll hang out with them before the show. If I see them in the mall, I’ll stand there and talk to them for 10 minutes.

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.

There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It’s always been my way of expressing what, for me, is inexpressible by any other means.

Every album, I make big records. I’m going to always make an anthem. That’s what I do.

I’m trying to do what Eddie Murphy did for his generation. You have to show people, ‚I’m different. I’m not just a comedian.‘ I’m trying to become a rock star.

Some people are making music just for numbers and views.

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.

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.

I never wanted to look pretty on stage and sing about something we’ve all heard about before.

I would love to study guitar or trumpet.

I want to be a recording artist for my whole entire life. But Broadway is something I would come back to at any given moment. I love, love, love doing theater.

There’s always gonna be rock n‘ roll bands, there’s always gonna be kids that love rock n‘ roll records, and there will always be rock n‘ roll.

When I listen to the radio, I just hear so much music that doesn’t even sound like people. The vocals are all tuned, and the drums are all fake.

If you want to find the source of much of the music of modern day Russia, you will find it in the incredible compositions of that crazed lunatic Berlioz.

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 love story songs because I’ve always loved books.

I like the way the stories of my relationships sound to music more than the way they look in print, in gossip columns or in me talking about them in interviews. I think it’s a better way of telling the stories.

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.

It confuses me and disappoints me when somebody says, ‚What does he do? What does he do?‘ My records are some of the biggest anthems ever. What do you think, they magically just appear? Obama walked out to my record.

Every artist preserves deep within him a single source from which, throughout his lifetime, he draws what he is, and what he says. When the source dries up, the work withers and crumbles.

I’m the same kid who used to hop the trains with headphones and just go to downtown Manhattan, walk around and listen to music or walk through the city. The fame restricts that. It’s a small complaint in comparison to the benefits I get from it, but the restrictive part is what I don’t like – and the fact that it’s not reversible.

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 whole slacker generation totally didn’t apply to us musically.

At 13 years old, I realized I could start my own band. I could write my own song, I could record my own record. I could start my own label. I could release my own record. I could book my own shows. I could write and publish my own fanzine. I could silk-screen my own T-shirt. I could do this all myself.

When I joined Nirvana, I was the fifth or sixth drummer – I don’t know if they’d ever had a drummer they were totally happy with. And they were strangers. There was never much of a deeper connection outside of the music.

I think Mozart’s operas ‚The Marriage of Figaro‘ and ‚Don Giovanni‘ are the two most perfect ever written. The music is magical.

Who’s to say what’s a good voice and not a good voice?

I could imagine at a certain age, when I have no vocal cords left, that I would find a young man who could sing my parts for me. But I don’t see why I would stop.

Most of those melodies are me trying to find out what notes fit, and then hitting ones that don’t fit in a very interesting way.

With music, you often don’t have to translate it. It just affects you, and you don’t know why.

I’ve gotten used to being Frank Ocean.

The point about melody and beat and lyric is that they exist to engage you in a very particular way. They want to occupy your attention.

When I’m writing a record, I kind of don’t listen to much music. Just because I want to be inspired solely on the emotion; just based on how it feels.

At 57, to have a No. 1 album, I wasn’t expecting it.

I support Real Madrid. I’m a big fan of Cristiano Ronaldo.

Speaking purely from a musical standpoint, I think I am a great performer.

I love making music. That’s what I love to do. So I don’t feel like there’s any need to take a break unless I want to.

I sure lost my musical direction in Hollywood. My songs were the same conveyer belt mass production, just like most of my movies were.

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 don’t know if it’s changing already with ‚Joanne,‘ but my intention is to bring people together that don’t know each other and that would maybe feel awkward, but somehow be brought together by the music. That’s what I wanted to do. Because that is pure and authentic to my family history and what I stand for.

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.

And later, if I ever felt that I was getting swept away by the craziness of being in a band, well, I’d go back to Virginia.

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.

I enjoy singing my songs in front of people.

Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.

My grandfather once ventured upon publishing a volume of hymns. I never heard anyone speak in their favour or argue that they ought to have been sung in the congregation. In that volume, he promised a second if the first should prove acceptable. We forgive him the first collection because he did not inflict another.

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

Honestly, I’d love to be remembered as one of the best to ever pick up a mic, but if I’m doing my part to lessen some racial tension I feel good about what I’m doing.

I like to read books. I like to listen to 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.