‚Jolene‘ has been very popular all of these years, even overseas.

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

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.

It is only in his music, which Americans are able to admire because a protective sentimentality limits their understanding of it, that the Negro in America has been able to tell his story.

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

Music has the power to inspire the world.

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.

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

An operatic voice is like no other.

I have to admit I’ve found myself doing the same things that a lot of other rock stars do or are forced to do. Which is not being able to respond to mail, not being able to keep up on current music, and I’m pretty much locked away a lot. The outside world is pretty foreign to me.

‚Kiss Land‘ wasn’t about what people wanted to hear on the radio. It was the state of mind I was in – introverted, like David Cronenberg’s ‚Naked Lunch.‘ You didn’t know if you were hearing a chorus or a verse. It was just my thoughts.

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

Lyrics are so important, but they’re really underrated.

When I got to New York City when I was 18, I started playing in clubs in Brooklyn – I have good friends and devoted fans on the underground scene, but we were playing for each other at that point – and that was it.

The most miraculous process is watching a song go from a tiny idea in the middle of the night to something that 55,000 people are singing back to you.

All I really had was a suitcase and my drums. So I took them up to Seattle and hoped it would work.

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

I belong to a gospel choir. They know I am an atheist but they are very tolerant.

‚Two Voices,‘ from my album with Peter Schwalm, is an intact dream-poem. I awoke one night with an image of a piece of paper and all the words of the poem written on it, so I just blundered down to the kitchen table and ‚copied it out.‘

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

No one tells me what to do with my music. Real. My mom doesn’t tell what to say, how is someone else going to?

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

Yes, the Bible should be taught in our schools because it is necessary to understand the Bible if we are to truly understand our own culture and how it came to be. The Bible has influenced every part of western culture from our art, music, and history, to our sense of fairness, charity, and business.

I knew the second I finished the first record – ‚House Of Balloons‘ – and had all this material leftover that a trilogy would be best.

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

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

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

Music fills in for words a lot of the time when people don’t know what to say, and I think music can be more eloquent than words.

Music has to be sort of ignorable sometimes.

What I’m hoping is that every album I’m going to do will give my audience something different, and that they’ll grow as I do.

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.

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.

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

Music is really driving my whole life.

I remember talking with Arcade Fire after their first record, when they were getting all kinds of offers from major labels, and I don’t think I gave them any advice. They survived that whole onslaught pretty well anyway without me.

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.

No one sells a song better than the person that wrote it.

I wish myself to be a prop, if anything, for my songs. I want to be the vehicle for my songs. I would like to colour the material with as much visual expression as is necessary for that song.

I always use the same guitar; I got this guitar years and years ago for nine pounds. It’s still got the same strings on it.

I was a super-duper Tupac fan, and I realized later, when I became a huge Nas fan and a huge Eminem fan, I was drawn to the storytellers. They all told stories in different ways, but they were all like the best storytellers.

What I’ve discovered is that in art, as in music, there’s a lot of truth-and then there’s a lie. The artist is essentially creating his work to make this lie a truth, but he slides it in amongst all the others. The tiny little lie is the moment I live for, my moment. It’s the moment that the audience falls in love.

Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.

Having listened to great songwriters like James Taylor and Carole King, I felt there was nothing new that was coming out that really represented me and the way I felt. So I started writing my own stuff.

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.

Dropkick Murphys get me going, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana… plus, all the regular hip-hop stuff.

I was always singing but didn’t plan on pursuing it seriously. When I got to New York City when I was 18, I started playing in clubs in Brooklyn – I have good friends and devoted fans on the underground scene, but we were playing for each other at that point – and that was it.

John Lennon was definitely my favorite Beatle, hands down.

Music, for me, is vital. Punjabi, Bollywood, Sufi, RnB… I listen to it all. When I’m not listening to music, you will find me chatting with friends. Off the field, I just let my instincts take over. I certainly don’t think about batting, or which bowlers I’m going to face.

‚Wrecking Ball‘ is a great song.

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.

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.

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

I really wish I knew what I was doing because I’d be writing hit songs every minute.

I’ve always been a fan of melody and emotional melancholy, whether it was Rites of Spring or Tears for Fears or Neil Young. If I hear a song that has a sweet melody, I’m a sucker for it, whether it’s Linkin Park or Little Richard.

My songs always sound a lot better in person than they do on the record.

I grew up in a musical family; the majority of my growing up was done in Hawaii. It’s what we do. You sing, you dance, you play ukulele and you drink.

I get a thrill meeting kids who are into alternative 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.‘

My goal in music is to create nostalgic moments.

The basis of our partnership strategy and our partnership approach: We build the social technology. They provide the music.

The first rap CD that I had, it was so different for me. The energy, the wordplay, all that caught my attention, and I liked it.