Latin music is universal.

Human beings love poetry. They don’t even know it sometimes… whether they’re the songs of Bono, or the songs of Justin Bieber… they’re listening to poetry.

I don’t sing because I’m happy; I’m happy because I sing.

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

We tend to mistake music for the physical object.

We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first, rock ‚n‘ roll or Christianity.

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

Fans are my favorite thing in the world. I’ve never been the type of artist who has that line drawn between their friends and their fans. The line’s always been really blurred for me. I’ll hang out with them after the show. I’ll hang out with them before the show. If I see them in the mall, I’ll stand there and talk to them for 10 minutes.

I love story songs because I’ve always loved books.

It was always a plan that we were going to have a retail side with what were doing musically, like an Apple store or Nike Town. I wanted something where you can come get everything – ‚Marathon‘ or ‚All Money‘ or ‚Crenshaw‘ – and make it like an experience. Especially with what Crenshaw and Slauson meant to my story.

Now, we are selling over 5 million songs a day now. Isn’t that unbelievable? That’s 58 songs every second of every minute of every hour of every day.

You go to a festival, you know you’re not going to play all new material at a festival. The audience is not there for that. I’ve made that mistake, but you find out pretty quickly.

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

I think maybe people see bands and musicians as some sort of superhero unrealistic sport that happens in another dimension where it’s not real people and not real emotions. So, I grew up listening to Beatles records on my floor. That’s how I learned how to play guitar. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be a musician.

I play the harmonica. The only way I can play is if I get my car going really fast, and stick it out the window.

A chorus is not easy.

We moved into the back, made it into a little 50s sitting room and started to sell the records. We had an immediate success. For one thing, these Teddy Boys were thrilled to buy the records.

America has absorbed people from around the world, and there is an Indian in every part of the world. This characterizes both the societies. Indians and Americans have co-existed in their natural temperament.

Cause when you’re sequencing a record, you want the listener to stick with it from beginning to end, and in order to do that, you really have to map out the journey from the first song to the last.

I’ve always tended to write songs prolifically.

I was 14, and I fell in love with Pink Floyd.

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.

One of my big fears is people saying my songs are all starting to sound the same.

Phish and Dave Matthews really know their audiences and really treat them well.

It is a great shock at the age of five or six to find that in a world of Gary Coopers you are the Indian.

I always say this about my music, and music in general: Music is like a time capsule. Each album reflects what I’m going through or what’s going on in my life at that moment.

They say you can rap about anything except for Jesus, that means guns, sex, lies, video tapes, but if I talk about God my record won’t get played Huh?

I really am a fan of Ye’s music.

I’m pretty sure in my older years, I’ll be doing old-time flavored folk-mountain music.

I went through all the musicians in my life who I admire as bright, intelligent, virtuosic players.

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.

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

Music is really driving my whole life.

I live half the year on Necker, a tiny island in the Caribbean, and it’s always full of people in party mode. Everyone comes up to the big house, and we’ll be dancing until the early hours to the island’s band, the Front Line.

From the beginning of my rap career, since I was seen and heard, I always had a store.

I have so many playlists full of Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, Chris Brown.

I hate talking about music, to tell you the truth.

The album requires a certain focus of mine that I can’t really explain – let’s just say it’s all I can really do while I’m doing it.

I wanted to have the adoration of John Lennon but have the anonymity of Ringo Starr. I didn’t want to be a frontman. I just wanted to be back there and still be a rock and roll star at the same time.

I think ‚Hail to the Chief‘ has a nice ring to it.

A song is anything that can walk by itself.

Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.

I don’t intend to stop making music.

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.

There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It’s always been my way of expressing what, for me, is inexpressible by any other means.

I write my own songs. I made my own videos. I pick my producers. Nothing goes out without my permission. It’s all authentic.

If it’s illegal to rock and roll, throw my ass in jail!

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.

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.

It doesn’t bother me when people try to deconstruct my songs – because at least they’re looking at the lyrics, and paying attention to the way the story is told.

I would love to continue in music, with writing… but I am not the kind of person who will hang around if I start to become irrelevant. If that happens, I will bow down gracefully, raise my kids, and have a garden. And I am going to let my hair go gray when I am older. I don’t need to be blonde when I’m 60!

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

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

What inspires me about rap is that it’s written in an almost poetic way. I just think it’s so cool.

John Lennon was definitely my favorite Beatle, hands down.

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.

Every day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music and rings the whole day through, and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life march, as you will.

I would like to do a duet with Taylor Hanson, because I have loved Hanson since I was 8.

I don’t think a song should be put in a category.

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

Hell is full of musical amateurs.