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 wanted to be in a punk band before I had even heard any punk music.

It’s always fun to talk about jazz.

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

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 always wanted to operate at the highest altitude, just in terms of hip-hop and the music.

When you listen to Ray Charles, there’s never any doubt whose voice that is.

Life is a song to me.

I enjoy singing my songs in front of people. I enjoy being involved in making the artwork for albums and stupid stuff like that.

Punk is musical freedom. It’s saying, doing and playing what you want. In Webster’s terms, ‚nirvana‘ means freedom from pain, suffering and the external world, and that’s pretty close to my definition of Punk Rock.

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 wish myself to be a prop, if anything, for my songs. I want to be the vehicle for my songs. I would like to colour the material with as much visual expression as is necessary for that song.

Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. They’re my biggest heroes. I love everything about Leonard Cohen: his lyrics and his voice. He seems like a really clever man, and Bob Dylan does as well. He’s just really cool.

There’s something missing in the music industry today… and it’s music. Songs you hear don’t last, it’s just product fed to you by the industry.

When my record comes on, you know that’s a DJ Khaled record. That’s my formula, and the people love it.

Singing aloud leaves you with a sense of levity and contentedness.

My songs have always been frustrating themes, relationships that I’ve had. And now that I’m in love, I expect it to be really happy, or at least there won’t be half as much anger as there was.

It’s important to love in hip hop.

Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.

I’ve written all my songs on every single one of my records, and that’s what’s been fun about looking back.

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

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.

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

Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.

Music helps me tell my story. That’s where I can really be heard. But there’s so much focus on the things that aren’t music.

I was probably 7 years old when I started playing the guitar and writing some serious songs.

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.

I feel like the reason people feel like they know me is because I’m giving you myself in the music. There’s where the connection comes from; you can’t Twitter that.

I owe everything to Nirvana. But I can’t let that overshadow the future. For the first few years, I didn’t even want to talk about Nirvana. Partly because it was just painful to talk about losing Kurt but also because I wanted the Foo Fighters to mean something.

Dropkick Murphys get me going, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana… plus, all the regular hip-hop stuff.

Many of my fans often tell me that they listen to my songs to get through things. And therefore, obviously, I hope that they can picture being in a place where things are better… I hope my songs can bring people to a calm place.

Music from my fourth year began to be the first of my youthful occupations. Thus early acquainted with the gracious muse who tuned my soul to pure harmonies, I became fond of her, and, as it often seemed to me, she of me.

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

Who’s to say what’s a good voice and not a good voice?

My music is influenced by L.A. culture.

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

A good song never gets old.

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.

Perhaps when music has been shouting for so long, a quieter voice seems attractive.

I always say, you gotta play a dive bar like you play an arena, and you play an arena like you play a dive bar.

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.

‚Kiss Land‘ wasn’t about what people wanted to hear on the radio. It was the state of mind I was in – introverted, like David Cronenberg’s ‚Naked Lunch.‘ You didn’t know if you were hearing a chorus or a verse. It was just my thoughts.

I look out at the stadiums full of people and see them all knowing the words to songs I wrote. And curling their hair! I remember straightening my hair because I wanted to be like everybody else, and now the fact that anybody would emulate what I do? It’s just funny. And wonderful.

I play piano and ukulele, and I taught myself those things just because I wanted to play them.

No press, no television. If my mom calls and says, ‚Did you hear about?‘ I don’t want to know nothing about anything that is going on in relation to music. I shut it all off.

I’m personally more struck by visual things more than musical.

You have to be a bastard to make it, and that’s a fact. And the Beatles are the biggest bastards on earth.

I love to play music. So why endanger that with something like drugs?

A large part of mankind is angry not with the sins, but with the sinners.

I met India Arie, who is one of my favorite artists of all time. It was really sweet; I was broken up with a month before, and she stayed up texting me all night and was helping me through it. Her text message looks like a song of hers. She’s sort of become my fairy godmother.

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

Where I come from it was really unheard of to be at a party and someone says, ‚What kind of music do you make?‘, and you say, ‚Pop music.‘ You may as well have ‚I’m not cool‘ stamped on your forehead.

The end is the beginning of all things, Suppressed and hidden, Awaiting to be released through the rhythm Of pain and pleasure.

You know, my sister sings, my brother plays drums in my band. My whole family is a bunch of musicians.

I don’t think anyone ever plans to change line-ups, but it’s something that comes with being in bands. I was in a band once and there were always problems – members come and go – and some of the world’s biggest bands have changed line-ups loads!

I have long understood that losing always comes with the territory when you wander into the gambling business, just as getting crippled for life is an acceptable risk in the linebacker business. They both are extremely violent sports, and pain is part of the bargain. Buy the ticket, take the ride.

The first rap CD that I had, it was so different for me. The energy, the wordplay, all that caught my attention, and I liked it.

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.

I get a thrill meeting kids who are into alternative music.

This land is your land and this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway.

One and the same thing can at the same time be good, bad, and indifferent, e.g., music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good nor bad to the deaf.