My music is influenced by L.A. culture.

If people take anything from my music, it should be motivation to know that anything is possible as long as you keep working at it and don’t back down.

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.

I have never used Auto-Tune in a live television performance, and I have never used Auto-Tune in any of my concerts. That is a promise.

I’ve made over 25 studio albums, and I think probably I’ve made two real stinkers in my time, and some not-bad albums, and some really good albums. I’m proud of what I’ve done. In fact it’s been a good ride.

I don’t think that a leader can control, to any great extent, his destiny. Very seldom can he step in and change the situation if the forces of history are running in another direction.

In a certain way, it’s the sound of the words, the inflection and the way the song is sung and the way it fits the melody and the way the syllables are on the tongue that has as much of the meaning as the actual, literal words.

The future influences the present just as much as the past.

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

Diana Ross is a big inspiration to all of us. We all grew up watching everything about her – her mike placement, her grace, her style and her class.

I knew the second I finished the first record – ‚House Of Balloons‘ – and had all this material leftover that a trilogy would be best.

A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians.

Music keeps the heart porous in many ways.

It doesn’t bother me when people try to deconstruct my songs – because at least they’re looking at the lyrics, and paying attention to the way the story is told.

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

There is only one way… to get anybody to do anything. And that is by making the other person want to do it.

Ninety percent of all music is always crap, and when too many people decide they’re going to have guitar bands, then ninety percent of them are going to be crap. It’s just a given law.

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.

‚In Utero‘ was the first time I’d made an album that reached into the dark side. I remember the conflict and the uncertainty. I remember all those things when I hear ‚Pennyroyal Tea.‘

Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken.

My fans don’t feel like I hold anything back from them. They know whatever I’m going through now, they’ll hear about it on a record someday. They’ll hear the real story. There’s a little bit of lag time. It’s not as instant as going on a gossip blog. But it’s much more accurate.

Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

Is Wagner a human being at all? Is he not rather a disease? He contaminates everything he touches – he has made music sick.

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’d love to do a duet, always wanted to work with Madonna, but she never asked.

I listen to music all day every day. I can’t not listen to music. It’s kind of scary how much I listen to music, but it’s what I love, and it’s all I care about, so I’m good with it.

I love to play. And fortunately, I don’t know a lot of musicians that suck. I know a bunch of really good ones, and they’re always up for playing.

In music the passions enjoy themselves.

Whenever I make music, it reflects where I’m at mentally.

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.

In Puerto Rico we dance to everything.

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

This thing that I do with caring about the message in my music, it’s not separate from my work as a commercial artist; they’re totally one and the same. I’m always going to be thinking about what my voice means.

If you hear Anarchy in the UK today your hair stands on end. It gives you the shivers.

I’ve got my Grammys on top of my piano and I look at them when I play.

When it comes down to it, glam rock was all very amusing. At the time, it was funny, then a few years later it became sort of serious-looking and a bit foreboding.

If I’m going to get you to do stuff, I need to lead you. I can’t just order you to do it.

When ‚Paul’s Boutique‘ came out, I was one of the fans that didn’t get it.

My songs are the door to every dream I’ve ever had and every success I’ve ever achieved.

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

I have thought a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women.

I would love to study guitar or trumpet.

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.

Rap was my drug.

Every bad situation is a blues song waiting to happen.

A song is anything that can walk by itself.

I listen to music that is of our time and I just get angry.

I would say that jazz is my own language.

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

One of my most popular songs, ‚Satellites,‘ I paid $300 for that beat on SoundClick.

My experience with songwriting is usually so confessional, it’s so drawn from my own life and my own stories.

If there’s not drama and negativity in my life, all my songs will be really wack and boring or something.

I think that, whatever happens, I’m just happy I’ve written those songs and I’ve made an album. That’s really big for me, and I’m proud of that.

We live in a day that nobody’s lived in before: where you can touch more people. The message I’ll speak tonight and the message that I speak at home, people in India will hear. It’s just an amazing day.

The game is changing with songs like ‚Earned It‘ as opposed to it changing me.

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.

I didn’t live at school, I lived where I could and studied what I enjoyed studying. I took what I wanted from that education but was making my first record at the same time. I don’t know anyone from school. I was just leading a different life. I was really interested in writing and other things.

All my records and videos were groundbreaking.

I really learned to sing in church, I think, really with emotion.

Music is really driving my whole life.

A lot of people don’t realise I came out of the Smoky Mountains with a load of songs.