In music the passions enjoy themselves.

People are already finding ways to make their music and play it in front of people and have a life in music, I guess, and I think that’s pretty much all you can ask.

A lot of people don’t realise I came out of the Smoky Mountains with a load of songs.

I didn’t live at school, I lived where I could and studied what I enjoyed studying. I took what I wanted from that education but was making my first record at the same time. I don’t know anyone from school. I was just leading a different life. I was really interested in writing and other things.

I would drive to gigs in my tiny little Fiat. I would shoot up and down the M1 to play at various places.

I really love Linkin Park, and I loved Chester Bennington, and it is horrible what happened to him. I grew up listening to him because my dad would make these mixtapes with a lot of different artists – Linkin Park, Avril Lavigne, The Beatles, Sarah McLachlan, I just really loved Linkin Park, and their production is really sick.

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

Men like a ref decision because they just want to get back to the game.

I used to rush home to see ‚Match Of The Day.‘ Whatever I was doing, I wouldn’t miss it.

I can remember earning £5,000 a game playing for Hibs at the end of the Seventies. They let me commute from London, train on the Friday and play on Saturday. That lasted until my friends at the Inland Revenue decided to take two-thirds. That wasn’t very entertaining for me.

I make pop culture.

Mine is only one of the millions of hearts broken over the death of Whitney Houston, I will always be grateful and in awe of the wonderful performance she did on my song, and I can truly say from the bottom of my heart, ‚Whitney, I will always love you. You will be missed.‘

Everything I learned I learned from the movies.

I want more of my favorite artists or more of the guy that makes the anthems. I want more.

Movies are fun, but they are no cure for cancer.

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

I have lived and slept in the same bed with English countesses and Prussian farm women… no woman has excited passions among women more than I have.

I never went to rock concerts when I was a kid. I didn’t see any rock & roll bands. I had posters on my wall. I had Beatles records.

You create a community with music, not just at concerts but by talking about it with your friends.

There’s not much time to unwind, but you know what, it’s because I love what I do. I look forward to the season. I look forward to playing games. It doesn’t ever feel like work.

I’m all about surprises. If you watch a horror movie, and it’s called ‚Kiss Land,‘ it’s probably going to be the most terrifying thing you’ve ever seen in your life.

Honestly, I never really put the mic down.

I’m not a supermodel. That’s not what I do. What I do is music. I want my fans to feel the way I do, to know what they have to offer is just as important, more important, than what’s happening on the outside.

I became interested in folk music because I had to make it somehow.

I have never used Auto-Tune in a live television performance, and I have never used Auto-Tune in any of my concerts. That is a promise.

My songwriting is like extending a hand to the listener.

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.

It takes up enough of my time and interest just working on comedy. I just enjoy it and love doing it.

I try to really capitalize off of what other rappers really can’t do. There are opportunities that rappers I love simply can’t get, because… you know… I don’t have the tattoos; I have a different image.

The thing I enjoyed most were visits from children. They did not want public office.

Music can change the world because it can change people.

Much of everyday life is filled with opportunities to be distracted. Our possessions… entertainment… cares and anxieties… and even the passionate desire and pursuit of things, some good and not so good, can keep our minds and hearts caught up in a flurry of activity.

I often get ideas for songs on the tour bus at odd times. Like at 6am when no one is around, I’d just write.

I hope the fans have enjoyed listening as much as I’ve enjoyed doing the games. I don’t ever go to the park where I don’t have a good day. I don’t like losing. But I don’t think I ever go to the park where I have a bad day. I don’t think once.

How to play music may be known. At the commencement of the piece, all the parts should sound together. As it proceeds, they should be in harmony while severally distinct and flowing without break, and thus on to the conclusion.

Perhaps when music has been shouting for so long, a quieter voice seems attractive.

I don’t have time to stand around and listen to an 11-minute song.

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

The movie business is a big gamble.

I hate the idea of genres.

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

When I won the first Grammy, there was no other feeling like that feeling. It just made me feel like I came so far, like that was just a dream a few years before that, and then it was happening right then.

For some of us, watching a miniseries that lasts longer than most marriages is not easy.

I think if I did something in the pop world right now, it would be for Rihanna. I’d love to do something production wise for her.

Music comes to me more readily than words.

Are we simply waving farewell to the days when some of the most interesting thinking in Europe and America came to us from our fiction film-makers? BBC2, which once introduced and showed great films, now shows none.

I love the Sex Pistols. I’m a big Beach Boys fan and a huge Zeppelin and Queen fan.

He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.

‚Best Man Holiday‘ was a very successful film.

My favorite record label of all time is Motown. That era of music was my favorite.

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.

I would love to get Rihanna on a Khaled song. That’s my friend, but every time I’m around her, I get shy.

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.

Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken.

If you talk bad about country music, it’s like saying bad things about my momma. Them’s fightin‘ words.

I’ve written all my songs on every single one of my records, and that’s what’s been fun about looking back.

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

I’ve noticed a lot of younger artists have less fear of doing different sorts of things, whether it’s various types of music, or gallery artists moving between video and sculpture and drawing.

Factoring in millions of people when I’m writing a song is not a good idea. I don’t ever do it.

You can’t imagine parlor ballads drifting out of high-rise multi-towered buildings. That kind of music existed in a more timeless state of life.

Fun is one of the most important – and underrated – ingredients in any successful venture. If you’re not having fun, then it’s probably time to call it quits and try something else.