My music is influenced by L.A. culture.

Today, I’d like to talk to Bob Marley. I’d just like to ask him what was his method. Bob is one of the greatest songwriters ever. I don’t know if people understand how powerful his songs are and the simplicity and genius behind them, from ‚Redemption Song‘ to ‚Is This Love?‘ and ‚I Shot the Sheriff.‘

I like to read books. I like to listen to music.

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.

When I’m writing, I’m thinking about how the songs are going to play live. Fifty bars of rap don’t translate onstage. No matter how potent the music, you lose the crowd. They want a hook; they want to sing your stuff back to you.

Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

I don’t want to do free jazz! Because free jazz – which is the musical equivalent of free marketeering – isn’t actually free at all. It’s just constrained by what your muscles can do.

I don’t think I’d ever apologise for music I make, no.

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

Usually, when Nirvana made music, there wasn’t a lot of conversation. We wanted everything to be surreal. We didn’t want to have some contrived composition.

I sing seriously to my mom on the phone. To put her to sleep, I have to sing ‚Maria‘ from West Side Story. When I hear her snoring, I hang up.

Tupac, Biggie, Jay. Your usual suspects. These were the people that was played in my household.

I still wanna rap better than everybody else, and I wanna say important things.

Our schools and colleges are turning out people who cannot feel fulfilled unless they are telling other people what to do.

Nobody is as powerful as we make them out to be.

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

I kinda like the idea of having an album that’s all me.

If it’s illegal to rock and roll, throw my ass in jail!

I don’t think of Kurt as ‚Kurt Cobain from Nirvana‘. I think of him as ‚Kurt‘. It’s something that comes back all the time. Almost every day.

I’ve never wanted to use my age as a gimmick, as something that would get me ahead of other people. I’ve wanted the music to do that.

The more you are talked about the less powerful you are.

It’s terrifying to play your favorite band’s song in front of your favorite band.

I’m super serious about music. That’s, like, the only thing I’m serious about.

I rate Morrissey as one of the best lyricists in Britain. For me, he’s up there with Bryan Ferry.

I can play a lot of different instruments adequately but nothing really well.

I was doing sold-out shows before I got radio play.

It’s not essential for me to have a big debut week; it’s not essential for me to have big radio records.

I can understand how some people might resent me for having the audacity to continue playing music, but it’d take a lot more than that to stop me from doing it. I started Foo Fighters because I didn’t want to retreat.

If I make music and people hate it, you know, whatever. I’ll die someday, and one day, they will too.

Power is not sufficient evidence of truth.

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.

When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily I should have been in that band – or at least in a Pixies cover band.

I sang a lot of low stuff on songs like ‚Secrets‘ and ‚Rockin‘,‘ almost like Toni Braxton. On ‚Secrets,‘ I’m a different person.

Music belongs to the people. To no one else. To no one else.

Chicago gave me more music than any other city in America.

My songs always sound a lot better in person than they do on the record.

If I wasn’t Bob Dylan, I’d probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself.

I think ‚Hail to the Chief‘ has a nice ring to it.

A song has to take on character, shape, body and influence people to an extent that they use it for their own devices. It must affect them not just as a song, but as a lifestyle.

My mother knew how to read music and everything. But I just kinda learned off of records. And so, I was listening to records and I’d play ‚em over and over.

It’s not true I had nothing on, I had the radio on.

All my records and videos were groundbreaking.

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.

Five or six songs leaked from the original version of ‚Encore.‘ So I had to go in and make new songs to replace them.

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

No one sells a song better than the person that wrote it.

What I’m hoping is that every album I’m going to do will give my audience something different, and that they’ll grow as I do.

Genres aren’t closed boxes. Stuff flows back and forth across the borders all the time.

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.

The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.

I find in my poetry and prose the rhythms and imagery of the best – I mean, when I’m at my best – of the good Southern black preachers. The lyricism of the spirituals and the directness of gospel songs and the mystery of blues are in my music or in my poetry and prose, or I missed everything.

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

Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.

Hawaii is paradise. It sounds cheesy to say it, but there’s music in the air there.

The fame isn’t important to me. It’s a blessing to have. Having so many people that support me, that love me and listen to my music, is beautiful.

Rock ‚n‘ roll is ridiculous. It’s absurd. In the past, U2 was trying to duck that. Now we’re wrapping our arms around it and giving it a great big kiss.

We are second-hand people. We have lived on what we have been told, either guided by our inclinations, our tendencies, or compelled to accept by circumstances and environment. We are the result of all kinds of influences, and there is nothing new in us, nothing that we have discovered for ourselves: nothing original, pristine, clear.

If you’re going to change things, you have to be with the people who hold the levers.

I try to really capitalize off of what other rappers really can’t do. There are opportunities that rappers I love simply can’t get, because… you know… I don’t have the tattoos; I have a different image.

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. That’s the only way I can find an explanation for why 55,000 people would want to come see me sing.

My music fights against the system that teaches to live and die.