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

There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.

I find only freedom in the realms of eccentricity.

Fashion is that thing that saved me from being sad.

Most people would assume my business success, and the wealth that comes with it, have brought me happiness. But I know I am successful, wealthy, and connected because I am happy.

I’m at peace with what I’m doing, I feel good with what I wake up doing and about my lifestyle.

Every bit of me is devoted to love and art. And I aspire to try to be a teacher to my young fans who feel just like I felt when I was younger. I just felt like a freak. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m trying to liberate them, I want to free them of their fears and make them feel that they can make their own space in the world.

I don’t see myself as ever being like anybody else.

My personal feelings are my personal feelings. I don’t want to express them with anyone except for a very few people. It doesn’t do any good. It really doesn’t.

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.

Our words will either bring life and victory or death and destruction. If we want to be happy, we have to be serious about speaking words of life that line up with God’s Word.

Living big and joyful and content is almost always the result of our finding satisfaction in life’s ordinary day-to-day pleasures. And God must be fond of them, too, for He made so many of them for us to enjoy.

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.

In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don’t try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.

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

We don’t make music – it makes us.

We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first, rock ‚n‘ roll or Christianity.

Hell is full of musical amateurs.

Some artists just ruin their voices because they don’t know any better.

Many people tell me that they don ‚t know what to feel when they finish one of my books because the story was dark, or complicated, or strange. But while they were reading it, they were inside my world and they were happy. That’s good.

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.

Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get.

It’s better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone – so far.

It could be if I fight in front of one person or one million people. It’s still the same emotions.

I’m not a big believer in trying to jam stuff down somebody’s throat: ‚You’re going to do it my way.‘ I’d rather show by example and live my life and have people say, ‚You know what, I want to live like Joel has. He’s got peace and joy, and he seems content.‘

I like to be in control of how I look and how I feel and how I act.

You don’t have to be a renowned artist like Q-Tip to try your hand at poetry. You don’t need any special equipment – that’s the beauty of it.

Happiness doesn’t come from being rich, nor merely from being successful in your career, nor by self-indulgence. One step towards happiness is to make yourself healthy and strong while you are a boy so that you can be useful and so you can enjoy life when you are a man.

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.

I think my first album opened a lot of doors for me to push the freedom of speech to the limit.

I have a very eclectic iPod. So I’ve got my cardio people – so it’s anything from Beyonce to some Jay-Z to Janelle Monae, her song ‚Tightrope,‘ that’s a good cardio song. And then I’ve got Sting. I’ve got Mary J. Blige. I’ve got The Beatles. I’ve got Michael Jackson. I try to pick the songs that I personally love.

You have to like the present; if not your life becomes secondhand, if you think it was better before. Or that it will be better in the future.

When I was at school, I used to stay on a balcony singing and people would stand around listening.

I don’t know which will go first – rock ‚n‘ roll or Christianity.

Factoring in millions of people when I’m writing a song is not a good idea. I don’t ever do it.

The basis of our partnership strategy and our partnership approach: We build the social technology. They provide the music.

If you desire many things, many things will seem few.

The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.

A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.

If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.

What’s the greater risk? Letting go of what people think – or letting go of how I feel, what I believe, and who I am?

Action may not bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.

Laughter heals all wounds, and that’s one thing that everybody shares. No matter what you’re going through, it makes you forget about your problems. I think the world should keep laughing.

One day, I’ll be listening to a bunch of Ray Charles, the next day it’s nothing but Red Hot Chili Peppers. The next day it might be Tupac all day.

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.

To try to become happy is to try to build a machine with no other specifications than it shall run noiselessly.

It’s much more fun to play something you’re nothing like than what you are… It’s much easier to hide yourself in a character.

I can’t make a song for a particular person or demographic. If I love it, I’m gonna do it. I have to perform it for the rest of my life. A song is like a tattoo – you can never get away from it.

I’m always amazed by the people who work on stage who sing night after night, day after day, week in week out.

I just wanted to be a songwriter. I did really not like the sound of my own voice.

Nevertheless, whether in occurrences lasting days, hours or mere minutes at a time, I have experienced happiness often, and have had brief encounters with it in my later years, even in old age.

The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered, but a general effect of pleasing impression.

I used to consider the listener. But now I’m in a space where, if I’m not inspired, I can’t really do the music. I can’t feel it.

Marriage is the most wonderful thing ever.

Even though I’ve been putting out bodies of work for years, ‚Beauty Behind the Madness‘ felt like the beginning.

I’m working on my life story. I’m not decided if it’s going to be a musical or a movie with music in it.

I never desired to please the rabble. What pleased them, I did not learn; and what I knew was far removed from their understanding.

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.

Most poets are young simply because they have not been caught up. Show me an old poet, and I’ll show you, more often than not, either a madman or a master… it’s when you begin to lie to yourself in a poem in order simply to make a poem that you fail. That is why I do not rework poems.

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

I learned how important it is to entertain people and give them a reason to come and watch you play.