Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman.

I’ve accomplished enough with the music that I haven’t had to go out there and do other things to over-saturate.

He who does not trust enough, Will not be trusted.

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

Sitting on a bedroom floor crying is something that makes you feel really alone. If someone’s singing about that feeling, you feel bonded to that person.

So live with men as if God saw you and speak to God, as if men heard you.

Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America.

We are not angry with people we fear or respect, as long as we fear or respect them; you cannot be afraid of a person and also at the same time angry with him.

Happiness is a ball after which we run wherever it rolls, and we push it with our feet when it stops.

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

I don’t know, I feel desperate when I sing. And I look desperate – it feels like I’m singing for my life, which makes me twitch, if that makes sense.

Those who cannot work with their hearts achieve but a hollow, half-hearted success that breeds bitterness all around.

There weren’t a lot of career opportunities in crazy-fast hardcore punk, so you didn’t have a lot of ambition, just the love and passion to play music with your friends.

I wish I knew why I am so anguished.

How I love David Bowie.

My music seems to have a bigger mission than I have, which is very soothing but also very strange because people see more in me than I see, which can be terrifying.

I never dreamt, in my dream, I’m Dalai Lama.

There is nothing that makes its way more directly into the soul than beauty.

I just try to write songs that people are going to have a dialogue about.

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.

The thing that will never go away is that connection you make with a band or a song where you’re moved by the fact that it’s real people making music. You make that human connection with a song like ‚Let It Be‘ or ‚Long and Winding Road‘ or a song like ‚Bohemian Rhapsody‘ or ‚Roxanne,‘ any of those songs. They sound like people making music.

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.

Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.

Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return.

Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.

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.

No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.

The music we do is for people to enjoy, dance and sing to it. Dreamers – keep on dreaming and keep working hard to achieve your goals. There are many difficulties, but what matters is to stay focused and have perseverance.

I don’t think it’s possible to have a sense of tragedy without having a sense of humor.

Becoming an inspiration for kids is great. I want to inspire them to do whatever they want to.

Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.

Fashion is inspired by youth and nostalgia and draws inspiration from the best of the past.

The greatest story of all is Colonel Sanders. He didn’t start until he was sixty-six on a freeway bypass for his chicken shop. Anything is possible!

I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.

People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed around – the music and the ideas.

My purpose is to make exciting music, and I feel like I’ll be doing that for the rest of my life, so there’s no pressure.

I don’t live for the accolades. I’m more so about the music. Making it, and putting it out. Those are the two best feelings.

When all is said and done, more is said than done.

I always had faith in my creative capacity.

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

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

I was always interested in choreography – in making people think and feel something.

You cannot be creative with people around you.

When we’re falling in love or out of it, that’s when we most need a song that says how we feel. Yeah, I write a lot of songs about boys. And I’m very happy to do that.

There is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not already said it.

To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.

The uncertainty of parenting can bring up feelings in us that range from frustration to terror.

When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at top speed.

I pay attention to lyrics and I know what rap fans care about. I try to write for the average listener and I’m conscious of the mainstream without selling out.

Occasionally, I hanker for the time when I sold more records, but I don’t sit and drool about it. When I do look at early footage of Talking Heads, I realise I was just a wreck.

A more secret, sweet, and overpowering beauty appears to man when his heart and mind open to the sentiment of virtue.

Growing up, my grandmother did not want worldly music in the house. Then when I went out to California, I started listening to Spanish music, mostly Mexican music. But were I in Egypt, I would listen to the music of the people, or if I was in Italy, I’d listen to Italian music.

Everything is clearer when you’re in love.

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

In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.

All of my writing is God-given.

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

Mariah and Whitney Houston were my goddesses growing up.

Step with care and great tact, and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act.

One of the interesting things about having little musical knowledge is that you generate surprising results sometimes; you move to places you wouldn’t if you knew better.

I always try to put a seed of hope into people’s hearts. I’m not there to teach them doctrine necessarily, but to let them know that God is a good God, and has a plan for their lives. Hopefully, that will restore their faith, or draw them into faith.