So there’s nothing more provocative than taking a genre that everybody who’s cool hates – and then making it cool.

Hip-hop is ever changing but you’ll always have the pack. And you’ll always have those people who are separated from the pack.

I booked my first studio at like 12 or 13. Somewhere in that season of my life, singing along with the radio became me wanting to be on radio, you know.

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

I wanted to prove the sustaining power of music.

The great epochs of our life are the occasions when we gain the courage to rebaptize our evil qualities as our best qualities.

You know how you either grow up in a Michael Jackson house or a Prince house? For me it was Michael Jackson. I could never decide whether I wanted to be Michael Jackson or marry him.

Most of those melodies are me trying to find out what notes fit, and then hitting ones that don’t fit in a very interesting way.

I found music to be the therapy of choice. I guess it is for a lot of people.

When I was growing up, there were no women in orchestras. Auditioners thought they could tell the difference between a woman playing and a man. Some intelligent person devised a simple solution: Drop a curtain between the auditioners and the people trying out. And, lo and behold, women began to get jobs in symphony orchestras.

I never intended for the Monster Ball to be a religious experience, it just became one.

My grandfather once ventured upon publishing a volume of hymns. I never heard anyone speak in their favour or argue that they ought to have been sung in the congregation. In that volume, he promised a second if the first should prove acceptable. We forgive him the first collection because he did not inflict another.

I belong to a gospel choir. They know I am an atheist but they are very tolerant.

I think when people make a record with a goal in mind – like taking it to the next level or making them seem more mature – that gets in the way of writing great songs.

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

Men are April when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.

Every single one of the guys that I’ve written songs about has been tracked down on MySpace by my fans.

I just love Bowie. I think he’s the ultimate inventor.

Philosophy is the highest music.

All my momma’s people were very musical. My grandpa, who was the Pentecostal minister, he was a great musician. He played the fiddle, he played the piano.

We were never intimate mother and children while she was our mother – but… when she became our child, the affection came.

You listen to the radio and all the songs sound the same, from 8 in the morning to 12.

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

All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.

It’s a philosophy of life. A practice. If you do this, something will change, what will change is that you will change, your life will change, and if you can change you, you can perhaps change the world.

No, I can’t do rap music!

U2 is an original species… there are colours and feelings and emotional terrain that we occupy that is ours and ours alone.

I’m not going to make a song just to make a song. The day that I make an album, it’s so that people really know what Bad Bunny’s about.

If you want to find the source of much of the music of modern day Russia, you will find it in the incredible compositions of that crazed lunatic Berlioz.

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

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.

Evolution was far more thrilling to me than the biblical account. Who would not rather be a rising ape than a falling angel? To my juvenile eyes, Darwin was proved true every day. It doesn’t take much to make us flip back into monkeys again.

I taught myself to play the guitar by listening to Paul Simon records, working it out note by note. He is an incredibly intelligent musician. He’s not someone who has a natural outpouring of melody like McCartney or Dylan, who are just terribly prolific with musical ideas.

I get so excited when a song I wrote that’s very personal to me goes No. 1 and I look down and see people singing the words back to me.

Editing is now the easiest thing on earth to do, and all the things that evolved out of word processing – ‚Oh, let’s put that sentence there, let’s get rid of this‘ – have become commonplace in films and music too.

Singing into a microphone and learning to play an instrument – learning to do your craft – that’s the most important thing! It’s not about what goes on in a computer!

I don’t just listen to rap.

Whatever I’m feeling, whatever I’m going through, whatever mood I’m in… If I’m feeling like dancing or clubbing, then it will be reflected in the music. If I’m feeling dark and vulnerable, then it will reflect in the music, too.

I am my own sanctuary and I can be reborn as many times as I choose throughout my life.

Writing music is just like writing a book.

It is one thing to record an album but it’s a huge difference when people play it and listen to it and embrace it the way that I do. It has always been my dream to get my music out to the world and have people hear it.

Sometimes you stumble across a few chords that put you in a reflective place.

If tomorrow I want to release a rock album or I want to release a bachata album, nobody can tell me anything – why can’t I?

The only frustrating thing about jail is that I can’t make music.

Rap was my drug.

Sometimes, you might meet somebody that you love that’s turning into a ‚they.‘ My key is invite them to Miami and take them to the ocean and let them jump off the boat in the ocean, on the sand bar, and cleanse off and pray and then go take a shower, and hopefully the ‚they‘ is out of you.

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.

I’ve always loved Def Leppard, ever since I was little.

I want my fans to love themselves. It’s almost like I want to hypnotize them so when they hear my music they love themselves instantly.

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.

Developing nations want to become developed nations.

Yes, the Bible should be taught in our schools because it is necessary to understand the Bible if we are to truly understand our own culture and how it came to be. The Bible has influenced every part of western culture from our art, music, and history, to our sense of fairness, charity, and business.

Music is the art of the prophets and the gift of God.

Fill the earth with your songs of gratitude.

‚Doo-wop‘ is a very special word for me. Because I grew up listening to my dad who, as a Fifties rock & roll head, loved doo-wop music.

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.

I love making music. That’s what I love to do. So I don’t feel like there’s any need to take a break unless I want to.

I used to – my earliest memory of waking up with a melody in my head was, you know, 8, 9, 10. I’ve always heard kind of melodies in my head.

I don’t know how to function without music. When I’m not making it, I’m listening to it. It gives me courage and takes care of my mind.

One of the benefits of playing to small audiences in small clubs for a few years is that you’re allowed to fail.

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