I’m not suggesting people abandon musical instruments and start playing their cars and apartments, but I do think the reign of music as a commodity made only by professionals might be winding down.

Many of my fans often tell me that they listen to my songs to get through things. And therefore, obviously, I hope that they can picture being in a place where things are better… I hope my songs can bring people to a calm place.

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.

I don’t even listen to rap. My apartment is too nice to listen to rap in.

I wanted to be famous for my music and my talent, and I always wished I could cut it out when I left the stage.

I owe everything to Nirvana. But I can’t let that overshadow the future. For the first few years, I didn’t even want to talk about Nirvana. Partly because it was just painful to talk about losing Kurt but also because I wanted the Foo Fighters to mean something.

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.

You can’t really imagine music without technology.

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

Cause I’m a musician, I’m not really good at posing and being a model, like, modeling.

We don’t make music – it makes us.

My guitar only has five strings ‚cause the top one broke and I decided not to put it back on: when I play chords I only play bar chords, and the top one always used to cut me there.

Every day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music and rings the whole day through, and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life march, as you will.

Sometimes I do need to go to karaoke, sometimes I need to relax.

I like being able to be on the inside of music, rather than on the outside listening to it.

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 love music, and after my first experience with movies, I can’t wait to do more.

We were all on this ship in the sixties, our generation, a ship going to discover the New World. And the Beatles were in the crow’s nest of that ship.

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.

I really like hip-hop and rap; that’s my main influence. I really wanna be more of a hip-hop artist.

My songs are the door to every dream I’ve ever had and every success I’ve ever achieved.

Anybody with a sense of humor is going to put on my album and laugh from beginning to end.

I’ve gotten used to being Frank Ocean.

When I’m writing, I’m thinking about how the songs are going to play live. Fifty bars of rap don’t translate onstage. No matter how potent the music, you lose the crowd. They want a hook; they want to sing your stuff back to you.

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.

Some people focus more on sonics. Some people focus more on story. I focus on both sonics and story.

Music, even with these dial-up connections you have to the Internet, is very practical to download.

I never intended for the Monster Ball to be a religious experience, it just became one.

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.

Ninety percent of all music is always crap, and when too many people decide they’re going to have guitar bands, then ninety percent of them are going to be crap. It’s just a given law.

This land is your land and this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway.

I always say I wanna work with Alicia Keys. I’m in awe of her.

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’m not into albums that are meant to sound perfect.

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.

Music is always a commentary on society.

My songs are like my children – I expect them to support me when I’m old.

My music seems to have a bigger mission than I have, which is very soothing but also very strange because people see more in me than I see, which can be terrifying.

I’m a songwriter. Everything affects me.

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

I don’t know if I ever feel totally great about a record when I put it out. With every record that I put out, someone has literally got to come pry it from me because when I listen to my own music, I just hear flaws in it.

I say, ‚Yeah, Taylor Swift.‘ I think she is a smart, beautiful girl. I think she’s making all the right moves. She’s got a good head on her shoulders. She’s surrounded with wonderful people. Her songs are great. She keeps herself anchored. She knows who she is, and she’s living and standing by that.

I never listen to the radio unless I rent a car.

If I’d had good discipline, I might have gone into music.

I think music is one of the hero/sheroes of the African-American existence.

Music keeps the heart porous in many ways.

If it’s illegal to rock and roll, throw my ass in jail!

You know how you either grow up in a Michael Jackson house or a Prince house? For me it was Michael Jackson. I could never decide whether I wanted to be Michael Jackson or marry him.

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 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.

I met India Arie, who is one of my favorite artists of all time. It was really sweet; I was broken up with a month before, and she stayed up texting me all night and was helping me through it. Her text message looks like a song of hers. She’s sort of become my fairy godmother.

I was probably 7 years old when I started playing the guitar and writing some serious songs.

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

I don’t know anything about music. In my line you don’t have to.

I just love working with Eminem. He’s just one of my favorite rappers, and his lyrics – he’s a true poet, and I enjoy that about him.

Music when healthy, is the teacher of perfect order, and when depraved, the teacher of perfect disorder.

Confidence, as a teenager? Because I knew what I loved. I loved to read; I loved to listen to music; and I loved cats. Those three things. So, even though I was an only kid, I could be happy because I knew what I loved.

I love artists like Prince, who hold on to that element of mystery.

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

When I put out ‚Video Games‘ in May 2011, it was a 5:25-minute love song; I was surprised when a lot of people said they were listening to it. I was surprised when it went to the radio, without me even knowing how something like that even happens!

If I heard someone else singing like me, I would buy it in a heartbeat.