Music for me, it demands full concentration.

I decided to pursue music, so I dropped out of school and I told my parents I didn’t want any money from them. I got three jobs and I just hit the ground running.

The willingness and ability to live fully in the now eludes many people. While eating your appetizer, don’t be concerned with dessert.

When I’m really interested in something, I get superfocused on that. And I can spend hours upon hours not getting tired of reading about it and still be interested to learn more about it.

We uploaded ‚Ocean Eyes‘ to SoundCloud, and it started getting a lot of plays pretty much immediately.

You know, there are artists who are 35 and up that still make rap and that still works for them. I don’t know if I want to be that guy.

Music comes to me more readily than words.

If you talk bad about country music, it’s like saying bad things about my momma. Them’s fightin‘ words.

Years ago, when I first started being a big star, I had fans that were fanatical. It was when ‚Jolene‘ was a big hit.

At 57, to have a No. 1 album, I wasn’t expecting it.

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

Every single one of the guys that I’ve written songs about has been tracked down on MySpace by my fans.

Music is really driving my whole life.

Writing for other artists helped me figure out that magic you have to capture to make everyone connect with a song.

People tried to change my concept of what music is. That music is work, but it’s not like that.

I am like a man so busy in letting rooms in one end of his house, that he can’t stop to put out the fire that is burning the other.

All my records and videos were groundbreaking.

I always loved that old song ‚Banks of the Ohio‘ – it was always such a man’s song, so I’ve always wanted to record it.

There’s something about music that encourages people to want to know more about the person that made it, and where it was recorded, what year it was done, what they were listening to, and all this kind of stuff. There’s something that invites all this obsessive behavior.

I’ve never written a political song. Songs can’t save the world. I’ve gone through all that.

I believe in singing to such an extent that, if I were asked to redesign the British educational system, I would start by insisting that group singing becomes a central part of the daily routine. I believe it builds character and, more than anything else, encourages a taste for cooperation with others.

Even if my songs are quite sad or quite dark, I don’t want my songs to make people sad. It’s very important for me that all my songs have some kind of hope or light.

Sometimes I do need to go to karaoke, sometimes I need to relax.

I’m not claiming divinity. I’ve never claimed purity of soul. I’ve never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can… But I still believe in peace, love and understanding.

I’ve always felt music is the only way to give an instantaneous moment the feel of slow motion. To romanticise it and glorify it and give it a soundtrack and a rhythm.

I like to take every day just searching my own heart, making sure that I’m on course, and I’m doing what God wants me to do. I’m real good with not looking to the critics and looking straight ahead.

When there’s so much left to do, why spend your time focusing on things you’ve already done, counting trophies or telling stories about the good old days?

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

If you want to find the source of much of the music of modern day Russia, you will find it in the incredible compositions of that crazed lunatic Berlioz.

It’s kind of exhilarating, walking through a crazy, insane mob. 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.

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.

I used to consider the listener. But now I’m in a space where, if I’m not inspired, I can’t really do the music. I can’t feel it.

Some people focus more on sonics. Some people focus more on story. I focus on both sonics and story, but music sometimes, just music itself, can turn into more of a maths problem. I guess everything in life is a math problem, but it can be more about an empirical route to getting the symmetry that you want, and this vibe, sonically.

I don’t really believe in the type of pressure that people are wanting to put on the type of music that I make.

We don’t make music – it makes us.

I was very camera shy. People like hot girls, so I put my music to hot girls and it just became a trend. The whole ‚enigmatic artist‘ thing, I just ran with it. No one could find pictures of me.

As a kid, I used to see how Sachin Tendulkar used to win matches under pressure for India in Sharjah or other places. So I was always keen to repeat the same in similar situations. I don’t take pressure on myself when I am in the middle. I love pressure, and I always believe that pressure makes you more focused.

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.

Punk was defined by an attitude rather than a musical style.

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

I focus on one thing and one thing only – that’s trying to win as many championships as I can.

I can’t make a song for a particular person or demographic. If I love it, I’m gonna do it. I have to perform it for the rest of my life. A song is like a tattoo – you can never get away from it.

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

I just really want to get music out and tour and go places I’ve never been, and just do more videos. I love photography and videography, and so I really want to direct videos when I can.

When you’re singing you can hear the echo of people in the audience singing every single word with you, and that was that big dream that I had for myself. It’s happening.

I’ve had mixtapes that have been better than albums I’ve heard from other artists. I take my time; I put my heart into it.

The instrument that I never learned how to play was my fans. You know, they are the part of the story that nobody teaches you. I just want to do the right thing; I want to be a voice with them, among them.

I tried to give the world a bit of creativity, lyrics. And for me, I will always represent music from Puerto Rico, reggaeton, Latin music.

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.

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 play piano every day. I enjoy that.

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

I’ve made sure that in any situation and with any record label, I’m allowed to write my own music.

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

Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention.

Everyone I look up to is bringing me into the tech world. You’d be surprised by all the music people in it, invested in it.

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

I went to see ‚Phantom of the Opera‘ with my grandma and my mom when I was very little. The stage, the voice, the music… Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber has been a massive inspiration to me for some time – the storytelling, that deliciously somber undertone in his music.

My audience went, ‚Wait, why is she singing jazz? What’s going on?‘ And then they went, ‚Oh, because she can. Because she loves it.‘ And jazz, a music invented by the African-American community, is the greatest art form, I believe, to have ever come out of this country.

Times and conditions change so rapidly that we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future.

The lyrics are constructed as empirically as the music. I don’t set out to say anything very important.