Instruments sound interesting, not because of their sound, but because of the relationship a player has with them. Instrumentalists build a rapport with their instruments, which is what you like and respond to.

Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it.

I have to work really hard to get the record deal – I have to spend years at it to get good. I have to practice to be good at guitar.

The boys know they’re from Southeast Asia, and they have their food and their music and their friends, and they have a pride particular to them.

The worst thing is for a player to come to a club and not be able to play.

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

I was a strange, loud little kid who could sit at the piano and kill a Beethoven piece.

Music has an intrinsic meaning, which has always been mysterious to me.

I want my fans to love themselves. It’s almost like I want to hypnotize them so when they hear my music they love themselves instantly.

I’m such a good lover because I practice a lot on my own.

Man, that record came out and was real big in Memphis. They started playing it, and it got real big. Don’t know why-the lyrics had no meaning.

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

I really love the culture of hip-hop.

The Marshall guitar amplifier doesn’t just get louder when you turn it up. It distorts the sound to produce a whole range of new harmonics, effectively turning a plucked string instrument into a bowed one.

I always wanted a great love affair: something that feels big and full, really honest, and enough. No moment should feel slight, false, or a little off. For me, it had to be everything.

I could sing you a thousand and one doo-wop songs. I love the simplicity in that music. It’s not super-poetic, it’s just from the heart.

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.

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.

In case you’re wondering whether I lip synch, the answer is no… people think so because I sound so good.

I learned how important it is to entertain people and give them a reason to come and watch you play.

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

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 don’t know, I feel desperate when I sing. And I look desperate – it feels like I’m singing for my life, which makes me twitch, if that makes sense.

Whatever I’m feeling, whatever I’m going through, whatever mood I’m in… If I’m feeling like dancing or clubbing, then it will be reflected in the music. If I’m feeling dark and vulnerable, then it will reflect in the music, too.

I feel like in my music I can be a rebel. I can say things I wouldn’t say in real life.

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

When we started, a lot of bands sounded really different from one another.

I listen to my old records and I think, ‚How did I ever get on the radio?‘

When I listen to a song, I don’t say, ‚Oh my gosh, that vocal line she sang was the best thing I ever heard.‘ I’m thinking, ‚That lyric just moves me. That lyric just said what I feel better than I could say it myself.‘

My wife and I are very affectionate.

Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music.

Fool! Don’t you see now that I could have poisoned you a hundred times had I been able to live without you.

I like the idea of a kind of eternal music, but I didn’t want it to be eternally repetitive, either. I wanted it to be eternally changing. So I developed two ideas in that way. ‚Discreet Music‘ was like that, and ‚Music for Airports.‘ What you hear on the recordings is a little part of one of those processes working itself out.

Music is my shining light, my favorite thing in the world. T get me to stop doing it for one second would be difficult!

I used to sing songs and write with my uncle, Bill Owens.

Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.

The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings, and that these individual beings are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their own.

At best, the renewal of broken relations is a nervous matter.

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.

When I did ‚Bird,‘ it was a surprise to some people, first because I wasn’t in it and second because most of the films I’d been doing were cop movies or westerns or adventure films, so to be doing one about Charlie Parker, who was a great influence on American music, was a great thrill for me.

I was ready to quit music. It felt to me like music equalled death.

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.

I never wanted to sing. I just wanted to play rhythm guitar – hide in the back and just play.

The game is changing with songs like ‚Earned It‘ as opposed to it changing me.

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.

We have a Boesendorfer piano that I play every day. It keeps my brain and my fingers active.

If it weren’t for the Beatles, I would not be a musician.

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.

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

It’s terrifying to play your favorite band’s song in front of your favorite band.

In a certain way, it’s the sound of the words, the inflection and the way the song is sung and the way it fits the melody and the way the syllables are on the tongue that has as much of the meaning as the actual, literal words.

Usually, when Nirvana made music, there wasn’t a lot of conversation. We wanted everything to be surreal. We didn’t want to have some contrived composition.

People are used to music that justifies street culture but something that’s not touched on is why these kids act the way they act, live the way they live.

The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism, a pensioner, as it were, who dwells with the body.

I love being a part of the country-music community.

Every bad situation is a blues song waiting to happen.

I’m wallowing in the whole idea of just being a guy out there with a band, with songs. It’s a real enjoyment.

My music will go on forever. Maybe it’s a fool say that, but when me know facts me can say facts. My music will go on forever.

I didn’t think it was special to be able to sing.

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

That thing about being an icon, the fifth Beatle, I just found it so freaky.