Most rock journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, for people who can’t read.

Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.

I alone of English writers have consciously set myself to make music out of what I may call the sound of sense.

Lots of songs aren’t even from my experiences, but they’re about accepting… the dark things about yourself.

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.

You have to be practical. So every time I say, if you want to write a novel you have to be practical, people get bored. They are disappointed. They are expecting a more dynamic, creative, artistic thing to say. What I want to say is: you have to be practical.

I wrote a few children’s books… not on purpose.

You’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child.

I’m not a very creative person, you know? I’m not really an art person. I’m not a great reader or writer or artist or musician.

All of my music is honest.

Sing me a new song; the world is transfigured; all the Heavens are rejoicing.

‚Bellyache‘ is totally fictional. I like writing about things that aren’t real. The song is about not trusting anyone and then putting trust in yourself and realizing that you don’t know what you are doing, either. Or realizing that things you do with a group of people that you think are cool in the moment are ultimately all on you.

I don’t know how to function without music. When I’m not making it, I’m listening to it. It gives me courage and takes care of my mind.

One day, I’ll be listening to a bunch of Ray Charles, the next day it’s nothing but Red Hot Chili Peppers. The next day it might be Tupac all day.

All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.

We need to try to unite audiences, unite countries, join musical tastes, unite people.

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

To be honest, I never really considered myself to be too much of an actress. So, whenever I get the chance to do music, I’m always, like, just in it. It’s like, ‚Oh my God, I finally get to do this. I’m so happy.‘

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

People should just buy a CD and rip it. You are legal then.

The age of a woman doesn’t mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.

I wanted to prove the sustaining power of music.

The jazz I love is sweet and pure with raw elements, which is exactly what the good hip-hop is doing now.

Taylor Swift’s audience can listen to me, but so can the street kids. I want to touch it all.

My body is damaged from music in two ways. I have a red irritation in my stomach. It’s psychosomatic, caused by all the anger and the screaming. I have scoliosis, where the curvature of your spine is bent, and the weight of my guitar has made it worse. I’m always in pain, and that adds to the anger in our music.

I’m not interested in possible complexities. I regard song structure as a graph paper.

If you feel that there’s the author and then the character, then the book is not working. People have a habit of identifying the author with the narrator, and you can’t, obviously, be all of the narrators in all of your books, or else you’d be a very strange person indeed.

I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.

I think the reason I don’t read is because, when I’m reading, I feel like I’m missing out on something else. You know, What are my friends doing? Where’s my girlfriend?

It is not Kafka’s fault that his wonderful writings have lately turned into a fad, and are read by people who have neither the ability nor the desire to absorb literature.

I think we’re about ready for a new feeling to enter music. I think that will come from the Arabic world.

I want to thank The Beatles for almost single-handedly getting me out of writer’s block.

Many people tell me that they don ‚t know what to feel when they finish one of my books because the story was dark, or complicated, or strange. But while they were reading it, they were inside my world and they were happy. That’s good.

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 had not expected ‚A Brief History of Time‘ to be a best seller.

I’m the only person you’ve ever met who has read Longfellow.

So there’s no guarantee if you like the music you will empathize with the culture and the people who made it. It doesn’t necessarily happen. I think it can, but it doesn’t necessarily happen. Which is kind of a shame.

If you look deep enough you will see music; the heart of nature being everywhere music.

The mind of a 19-year-old is very different from the mind of a 26-year-old. You grow. You get into better relationships. You experience more, meet more people, better people. But when you’re in a dark hole at an earlier point in your life – you write about the mindset you’re in at that moment.

You can’t really imagine music without technology.

The only frustrating thing about jail is that I can’t make music.

To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.

And I saw the sax line-up that he had behind him and I thought, I’m going to learn the saxophone. When I grow up, I’m going to play in his band. So I sort of persuaded my dad to get me a kind of a plastic saxophone on the hire purchase plan.

I was a housewife, so I learned to write in times off, and I don’t think I ever gave it up, though there were times when I was very discouraged because I began to see that the stories I was writing were not very good, that I had a lot to learn, and that it was a much, much harder job than I had expected.

From the moment I started writing raps, I was always aware of the pressure. I always wanted to live up to how huge Snoop got, how huge Dre got, how huge Pac got. I was always aware.

I never expected any sort of success with ‚Mockingbird’… I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement.

There is no Frigate like a book to take us lands away nor any coursers like a page of prancing Poetry.

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

The darkness, the loop of negative thoughts on repeat, clamours and interferes with the music I hear in my head.

Rap was more of a release for me, a journal.

I want to keep making records as long as I can, but I don’t know how long you can be taken seriously in rap.

I don’t know how much longer I’ll be around. I’ll probably be writing when the Lord says, ‚Maya, Maya Angelou, it’s time.‘

If I haven’t any talent for writing books or newspaper articles, well, then I can always write for myself.

I never went to rock concerts when I was a kid. I didn’t see any rock & roll bands.

If one plays good music, people don’t listen and if one plays bad music people don’t talk.

Sure, women sportswriters look when they’re in the clubhouse. Read their stories. How else do you explain a capital letter in the middle of a word?

It’s almost schizophrenic who I portray in my music.

I had this dream to become a writer since I was a teenager.

It’s easy to make an album full of great songs. But I want people to go for the ride. The songs have to make sense together.

Television sounded really different than the Ramones sounded really different than us sounded really different than Blondie sounded really different than the Sex Pistols.

When I was 16, I started publishing all kinds of things in school magazines.