I’ve always been a singer. I never really decided I was gonna be a singer. It just kind of – I just sung a lot.

Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes.

I refuse to accept other people’s ideas of happiness for me. As if there’s a ‚one size fits all‘ standard for happiness.

If there’s not drama and negativity in my life, all my songs will be really wack and boring or something.

To the audience, it’s like I’m changing the subject every five seconds, but to me, my show’s almost like a 90-minute song that I know exactly. I wrote every note, and I know exactly where everything is.

Once you’ve changed who you are or who you’ve portrayed in your music, the fans, they’ll catch it… Once I feel like the world knows me for anything else but my music, then I feel like I failed.

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.‘

A lot of people like to do certain things, but they’re not that good at it. Keep going through the things that you like to do, until you find something that you actually seem to be extremely good at. It can be anything.

I have no definite talent or trade, and how I stay alive is largely a matter of magic.

I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

I just know that I’m a fan of all different kinds of genres. You’re supposed to be free doing music, and that’s how I feel.

There has to be something in every role that interests you.

I never wanted to stay in one genre; I never wanted to be pigeon-holed or defined as the actor who only worked in one genre. I want to be able to work in all different genres. For me it’s fun, and that’s how I grow as an actor.

In high school I wanted to be a rock star and was in a lot of bands.

You have to be a bastard to make it, and that’s a fact. And the Beatles are the biggest bastards on earth.

We tend to mistake music for the physical object.

It is our choices… that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day.

I didn’t want to be a fashion designer, and for a good half of my career I didn’t like it. I always wanted to do other things.

The people you choose to have around you make all the difference. My family and close friends keep me grounded. You have to have a mind of your own and a strong head on your shoulders. Cricket is the most important thing to me, so the rest of it pales in comparison.

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

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

I would venture to guess that the biggest reason creative types don’t produce isn’t because they don’t have vision… or talent… in most cases, it’s a lack of discipline.

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.

If people take anything from my music, it should be motivation to know that anything is possible as long as you keep working at it and don’t back down.

A ‚scream‘ is always just that – a noise and not music.

It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet.

I just have a thing in my brain that when I’m about to do something that’s genuine or authentic, I think of it in song form. I’ll be like, ‚Yo, this is a human emotion that no one talks about.‘

Whenever I write a novel, I have a strong sense that I am doing something I was unable to do before. With each new work, I move up a step and discover something new inside me.

I feel like the reason people feel like they know me is because I’m giving you myself in the music. There’s where the connection comes from; you can’t Twitter that.

You lose your individuality a huge amount when you have no money, and I certainly had that experience.

Anything that encourages people to pick up an instrument and play, I’m fully behind.

If I had any talent that God could give me, I would be a great diva.

The great quest of life has always been to discover truth.

We love things we love what they are.

I don’t think of Kurt as ‚Kurt Cobain from Nirvana‘. I think of him as ‚Kurt‘. It’s something that comes back all the time. Almost every day.

If a man knows not what harbor he seeks, any wind is the right wind.

I wanted to prove the sustaining power of music.

I’m pretty sure I don’t have any songs that are about how much I love someone. They’re all either about, like, ‚I hate you,‘ or ‚You make me hate me.‘

When I listen to the radio, I just hear so much music that doesn’t even sound like people. The vocals are all tuned, and the drums are all fake.

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.

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

The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it’s not going to happen. I’m fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years.

Children’s talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.

I do like Burial; he’s so curiously clumsy, you can’t help but be moved. It’s so un-Hollywood, and the rhythms are so un-danceable.

Love is only one of many passions.

Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.

I like to be creative.

Through Kurt I saw the beauty of minimalism and the importance of music that’s stripped down.

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.

I’m not going to make a song just to make a song. The day that I make an album, it’s so that people really know what Bad Bunny’s about.

At the end of the day, who I really and truly am is a little girl who loved to play the piano.

If I’m inspired to make a certain kind of song, I’m going to make that kind of song, no matter if it’s what they know me as or think I am.

Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.

Corruption is a cancer: a cancer that eats away at a citizen’s faith in democracy, diminishes the instinct for innovation and creativity; already-tight national budgets, crowding out important national investments. It wastes the talent of entire generations. It scares away investments and jobs.

Nothing feels better than going onstage and everybody is singing every word – and actually wanting to see you.

If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.

Thirty-three-years-old, still creating art. It’s rage, it’s creativity, it’s pain, it’s hurt, but it’s the opportunity to still have my voice get out there through music.

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

Singing aloud leaves you with a sense of levity and contentedness.