Music has to be sort of ignorable sometimes.

Of course, ‚I Will Always Love You‘ is the biggest song so far in my career. I’m famous for several, but that one has been recorded by more people and made me more money, I think, than all of them. But that song did come from a true and deep place in my heart.

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.

Cause I’m a musician, I’m not really good at posing and being a model, like, modeling.

I wanted to be Gerry Mulligan, only, see, I didn’t have any kind of technique. So I thought, well, baritone sax is kind of easier; I can manage that – except I couldn’t afford a baritone, so I bought an alto, which was the same fingering.

You get to a point where it’s like you can’t really do anything right, and people will pick on you for whatever decisions you make, so I just try and take no notice and get on with my music.

I never listen to ‚Nevermind.‘ I haven’t listened to it since we put it out. That says something.

Whatever I’m feeling, whatever I’m going through, whatever mood I’m in… If I’m feeling like dancing or clubbing, then it will be reflected in the music. If I’m feeling dark and vulnerable, then it will reflect in the music, too.

Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something.

One of the benefits of playing to small audiences in small clubs for a few years is that you’re allowed to fail.

Music when healthy, is the teacher of perfect order, and when depraved, the teacher of perfect disorder.

I never wanted to look pretty on stage and sing about something we’ve all heard about before.

For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.

I think what made it difficult for people to get, and still makes it difficult for people to get, is the theatrical nature of the work and the fact that, my music doesn’t exist without the performance-art element.

Hip-hop is ever changing but you’ll always have the pack. And you’ll always have those people who are separated from the pack.

If it’s good music, it’s good music.

You know how you either grow up in a Michael Jackson house or a Prince house? For me it was Michael Jackson. I could never decide whether I wanted to be Michael Jackson or marry him.

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

Music is not math. It’s science. You keep mixing the stuff up until it blows up on you, or it becomes this incredible potion.

I just love Bowie. I think he’s the ultimate inventor.

I consider myself to have one of the greatest voices in the industry.

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 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.

Getting a great idea with song writing is a lot like love. You don’t know why this one is different, but it is. You don’t know why this one is better, but it is. It sticks in your head, and you can’t stop thinking about it.

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

I want to be a recording artist for my whole entire life. But Broadway is something I would come back to at any given moment. I love, love, love doing theater.

In case you’re wondering whether I lip synch, the answer is no… people think so because I sound so good.

I sing and play the guitar, and I’m a walking, talking bacterial infection.

I taught myself how to play the guitar, I taught myself how to play the drums, and I kind of fake doing both of them. But drumming comes more natural to me, and it just feels better.

A letdown is worth a few songs. A heartbreak is worth a few albums.

Songs for me are like a message in a bottle. You send them out to the world, and maybe the person who you feel that way about will hear about it someday.

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.

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.

I love good, loud speakers.

I get a more passionate delivery when I just go in the booth and let the music talk.

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.

I found music to be the therapy of choice. I guess it is for a lot of people.

I do seem to like to combine the dramatic emotional warmth of strings with the grooves and body business of drums and bass.

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.

People assume that the meaning of a song is vested in the lyrics. To me, that has never been the case. There are very few songs that I can think of where I remember the words.

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

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.

When I started working on ambient music, my idea was to make music that was more like painting.

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.‘

If you play an instrument, it makes you a better singer. The more you play, the better you sing, the more you sing, the better you play.

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

While musical experts of the world focus on what choir members can do, I would like to focus on what choir members can be.

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.

People – especially white people – they want me to be a role model just because of the life I lead. The things I say in my songs, they expect it of me.

We based the look on rock ‚n roll right from the beginning.

Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.

All of my music is honest.

On the other hand, what I like my music to do to me is awaken the ghosts inside of me. Not the demons, you understand, but the ghosts.

For me, ‚risky‘ is revealing what really happened in my life through music. Risky is writing confessional songs and telling the true story about a person with enough details so everyone knows who that person is.

When I won the first Grammy, there was no other feeling like that feeling. It just made me feel like I came so far, like that was just a dream a few years before that, and then it was happening right then.

From the time that ‚Nevermind‘ came out in September of 1991 to the time that Nirvana was over, it was really just a few years, and a lot happened in those few years.

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

We tend to mistake music for the physical object.

I play piano every day. I enjoy that.

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

In 7th grade, I believe, I wrote my first rap song. It was about everything I was seeing, everything that was going on around me.