I’m putting out this free music, constantly putting it out.

I love the song ‚I Hope You Dance‘ by Lee Ann Womack. I was going to write that song, but someone beat me to it.

My nails are my rhythm section when I’m writing a song all alone. Some day, I may cut an album, just me and my nails.

Songs don’t have to be about going out on Saturday night and having a good rink-up and driving home and crashing cars. A lot of what I’ve done is about alienation… about where you fit in society.

My dad was into the 1950s doo-wop era. If you look at those groups, or at James Brown, Jackie Wilson and the Temptations in the 1960s, you’ll see you had to be sharp onstage.

Music is like film to me.

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.

I’m personally more struck by visual things more than musical.

I want you to feel happy and enjoy the theatre of my life the way that I do. No matter what happens with my music and wherever I go – that heart of that glamorous girl in New York will never be gone.

I can’t see myself singing the same song twice in a row. That’s terrible.

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

When I’m 40 and nobody wants to see me in a sparkly dress anymore, I’ll be like: ‚Cool, I’ll just go in the studio and write songs for kids.‘

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.

The Heads were the only band on that scene that had a groove.

As for my stuff, I’m just doing guest verses for other people’s records. I try to stay recording, because if I don’t, I get rusty.

I started playing violin in the 5th grade. They had a program in school where you could get out of class to go play instruments. So I raised my hand, left out of class, me and a bunch of my homeboys, just to get out of class for that day. They asked what instrument you wanted to play and I picked the violin.

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.

In 7th grade, I believe, I wrote my first rap song. It was about everything I was seeing, everything that was going on around me.

I don’t live for the accolades. I’m more so about the music. Making it, and putting it out. Those are the two best feelings.

Tupac, Biggie, Jay. Your usual suspects. These were the people that was played in my household.

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

We need to try to unite audiences, unite countries, join musical tastes, unite people.

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

I have a very eclectic iPod. So I’ve got my cardio people – so it’s anything from Beyonce to some Jay-Z to Janelle Monae, her song ‚Tightrope,‘ that’s a good cardio song. And then I’ve got Sting. I’ve got Mary J. Blige. I’ve got The Beatles. I’ve got Michael Jackson. I try to pick the songs that I personally love.

Music is not math. It’s science. You keep mixing the stuff up until it blows up on you, or it becomes this incredible potion.

If it’s good music, it’s good music.

I believe in singing to such an extent that, if I were asked to redesign the British educational system, I would start by insisting that group singing becomes a central part of the daily routine. I believe it builds character and, more than anything else, encourages a taste for cooperation with others.

I can operate in half-a-song format.

I booked my first studio at like 12 or 13. Somewhere in that season of my life, singing along with the radio became me wanting to be on radio, you know. And writing Langston Hughes replica poems became me wanting to write like Stevie Wonder.

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

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

Look, when I started out, mainstream culture was Sinatra, Perry Como, Andy Williams, Sound of Music. There was no fitting into it then and of course, there’s no fitting into it now.

A record deal doesn’t make you an artist; you make yourself an artist.

For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.

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

Sometimes you stumble across a few chords that put you in a reflective place.

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

Rap music is the only vital form of music introduced since punk rock.

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

The great moments of rock ‚n‘ roll were never off in some corner of the music world, in a self-constructed ghetto.

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.

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.

Whenever I think about movies, I always look at that art process as having the best of a lot of worlds. Because if you watch a great film, you have a musical element to it, not just on the scoring, but in the way that the shots are edited – that has music and rhythm and time.

Editing is now the easiest thing on earth to do, and all the things that evolved out of word processing – ‚Oh, let’s put that sentence there, let’s get rid of this‘ – have become commonplace in films and music too.

The lyrics are constructed as empirically as the music. I don’t set out to say anything very important.

Music keeps the heart porous in many ways.

I think I don’t take myself too seriously. You know as far as, it’s a fun life. I take my music serious, but I like to have fun.

When I found somebody who I fell in love with, it made me feel different than I felt the rest of the day. It was electrifying. That’s what inspired the ‚Off to the Races‘ melodies. That’s one of the times when you’re feeling electrified by someone else and they make you happy to be alive.

One of my most popular songs, ‚Satellites,‘ I paid $300 for that beat on SoundClick.

Singing into a microphone and learning to play an instrument – learning to do your craft – that’s the most important thing! It’s not about what goes on in a computer!

I really appreciate the moments that I was able to win rap album of the year or whatever.

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.

I’ve been a huge fan of Chris Martin forever; it’d be awesome to work with him. He’s really kind, and he’s been really encouraging when we’ve met.

I think my first album opened a lot of doors for me to push the freedom of speech to the limit.

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.

U2 is sort of song writing by accident really. We don’t really know what we’re doing and when we do, it doesn’t seem to help.

I do value the respect I get from my contemporaries, but to have Oasis cover my song, to have Puff Daddy cover a song, to have Goldie come along to my gigs – that’s where my ego is at. To have my fellow musicians like what I do, that’s very cool.

There’s more good music being made now than ever before.

I never wanted to write the sort of song that said, ‚Look at how abnormal and crazy and out there I am, man!‘

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.

Mariah and Whitney Houston were my goddesses growing up.