I’m just writing, writing, writing. I keep these tablets on me until I’m inspired to go back in and make the music. I never take a break from my pen, because I pride myself on that.

Writing music is just like writing a book.

I find in my poetry and prose the rhythms and imagery of the best – I mean, when I’m at my best – of the good Southern black preachers. The lyricism of the spirituals and the directness of gospel songs and the mystery of blues are in my music or in my poetry and prose, or I missed everything.

Writing is the most fun you can have by yourself.

And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.

We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.

Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

It’s almost schizophrenic who I portray in my music.

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 don’t go off and sit down and try to write material, because then it’s contrived and forced. I just live my life, and I see things in a word or a situation or a concept, and it will create a joke for me.

I love Chris Brown. He’s a superstar. He’s one of the best singers out there.

It was a personal decision for me to stand and say that cricket is all I have in life, there’s nothing I need to do other than cricket. If I want to achieve whatever I thought as a kid, I need to work hard and not let it go to waste.

The concept of commercialism in the fashion and art world is looked down upon. You know, just to think, ‚What amount of creativity does it take to make something that masses of people like?‘ And, ‚How does creativity apply across the board?‘

I wanted to get rid of the element that had been considered essential in pop music: the voice.

Rap was my drug.

In order to become prosperous, a person must initially work very hard, so he or she has to sacrifice a lot of leisure time.

With ideas it is like with dizzy heights you climb: At first they cause you discomfort and you are anxious to get down, distrustful of your own powers; but soon the remoteness of the turmoil of life and the inspiring influence of the altitude calm your blood; your step gets firm and sure and you begin to look – for dizzier heights.

In 1995, I was diagnosed with cancer, and I had to practice what I preached. I had always said to ‚believe in God‘ and ‚don’t give up‘ to little kids who had been diagnosed with cancer. I then thought if I can’t call on that same God and same strength that I told people about, I would be a liar and a phony.

Get busy living, or get busy dying.

But I think there are a set of experiences that turn a potential writer into a working writer, and then there are places in your life were you start to recognize what you want to do.

Commitment is an act, not a word.

I love good, loud speakers.

Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.

It was very lucky for me as a writer that I studied the physical sciences rather than English. I wrote for my own amusement. There was no kindly English professor to tell me for my own good how awful my writing really was. And there was no professor with the power to order me what to read, either.

I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.

All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.

Songwriting is my way of channeling my feelings and my thoughts. Not just mine, but the things I see, the people I care about. My head would explode if I didn’t get some of that stuff out.

Sitting on a bedroom floor crying is something that makes you feel really alone. If someone’s singing about that feeling, you feel bonded to that person. That’s the only way I can find an explanation for why 55,000 people would want to come see me sing.

When I heard ‚Jesus, Take the Wheel,‘ I was like, OK. Some people look at it as a song written for an American Idol, Carrie Underwood, who is wonderful. But when you’re a songwriter listening to a song, you hear something else. I heard that song, and wow.

You should treat a muse like a fairy.

I’ve been blessed to be somebody that’s been climbing that success mountain top for years of hard work, you know, but now it’s all connecting. And now, the whole world is watching, you know what I’m saying, and it feels good ‚cause it’s good energy. This is all positive vibes, and good vibes and good energy, so it feels incredible.

It was one of those evenings when men feel that truth, goodness and beauty are one. In the morning, when they commit their discovery to paper, when others read it written there, it looks wholly ridiculous.

Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.

Sporadic thoughts will pop into my head and I’ll have to go write something down, and the next thing you know I’ve written a whole song in an hour.

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

I won’t be satisfied until people want to hear me sing without looking at me. Of course, that doesn’t mean I want them to stop looking.

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.

All great art is the work of the whole living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul.

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

When you are organizing a group of people, the first thing that we do is we talk about the history of what other people have been able to accomplish – people that look like them, workers like them, ordinary people, working people – and we give them the list: these are people like yourself; this is what they were able to do in their community.

As our case is new, we must think and act anew.

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

Music is like film to me.

All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.

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

Here’s what I think about music and journalism: The most important thing is to just press play.

I used to like to set different film clips to classical music, not even my own songs, but make little movies.

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

I put out one album one week, and I’m already worried about the next one. I feel a lot of emotion throughout the course of a day. But not to the point where you need to be worried about me.

Reduce your plan to writing. The moment you complete this, you will have definitely given concrete form to the intangible desire.

I don’t really believe in the type of pressure that people are wanting to put on the type of music that I make.

Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. Of course, I could be wrong.

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.

‚Victory‘ is like, you won, so the question is, what? What did you win? I think that the songs go into that. It’s just about reaching a place in myself.

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.

Art is man’s expression of his joy in labor.

I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels.

If one plays good music, people don’t listen and if one plays bad music people don’t talk.

I never went to rock concerts when I was a kid. I didn’t see any rock & roll bands.

Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.

I feel like I’m too busy writing history to read it.