Songwriters, you have to work – you have to wait for residuals. You have to pray that the song’s going to be a hit. And then a year later, you might get a check.

A lot of the records you buy, there’s nothing you can hold in your hand, it’s all 1’s and 0’s, this digital cloud floating in the ether. but with analog albums, you can hold it in your hand.

I think songwriting is the ultimate form of being able to make anything that happens in your life productive.

Surface R&B doesn’t work any more. The whole heartthrob thing, songs about unrealistic love and tearing your shirt off every show – that’s not really where it’s at any more. It’s becoming harder for those guys to sell records, and harder for them to succeed.

I read to my kid, but I can’t stand reading.

When I’m making music, I can hear all the parts, all the instruments. I can hear what it should be.

In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.

When we’re falling in love or out of it, that’s when we most need a song that says how we feel. Yeah, I write a lot of songs about boys. And I’m very happy to do that.

I feel, as a songwriter, it’s one of the hardest things to do – to sit down and say how you feel.

Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.

I actually met The Game in my hood on Crenshaw and Slauson. I was outside on the block with 20 of my homies. I see the Range Rover, and we all walked up to his car. I handed him my CD.

There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.

I write songs about stuff that I can’t really get past personally – and then I write a song about it and I feel better.

It is no good getting furious if you get stuck. What I do is keep thinking about the problem but work on something else. Sometimes it is years before I see the way forward. In the case of information loss and black holes, it was 29 years.

I put out tapes, but I always kept saying, ‚Why am I putting all this energy into these tapes?‘ I was like, ‚I’d rather make just an album because I have a vision; I know how I want to do my records.‘ I always felt like an artist as well.

Why do I like to write short stories? Well, I certainly didn’t intend to. I was going to write a novel. And still! I still come up with ideas for novels. And I even start novels. But something happens to them. They break up. I look at what I really want to do with the material, and it never turns out to be a novel.

I often get ideas for songs on the tour bus at odd times. Like at 6am when no one is around, I’d just write.

Because I’m not in a record deal, I don’t have to operate in an album format.

Most of my songs have names of people I’ve met or are dear to me. There are people who have privacy issues and about people knowing about their private life. But for me, I like to include few special names and few details about them to make the song very special to me.

The imminent demise of the large record companies as gatekeepers of the world’s popular music is a good thing, for the most part.

‚Unforgiven‘ is probably an example of a script that I liked right away but thought, ‚This is great, but I’d like to do this when I’m older.‘ So I stuck it in the drawer for ten years and then took it out.

When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.

You don’t hear no artists from Compton showing vulnerability.

Endurance is patience concentrated.

The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.

Unless I am both capable of and willing to reopen the wound every time I write a song, if I choose to not look inside myself to write music, I’m really not worth being called an artist at all.

Usually I start with a beat, I start making a beat, and my producer side is making the beat. And on a good day, my rapper side will jump in and start the writing process – maybe come up with a hook or start a verse. Sometimes it just happens like that. A song like ‚Lights Please‘ happens like that.

So many writers don’t like to write… I like to write, and sometimes I’m afraid I like it too much, because when I get into work, I don’t want to leave it. And as a result, I’ll go for days and days and days without leaving my house.

With all singers, insecurity is your best security. That’s why we’re such loud people and why we walk all funny. You think, ‚Are people interested?‘ But I think our band has something and they know we don’t just put albums out. We do think about it.

Manners require time, and nothing is more vulgar than haste.

U2 is sort of song writing by accident really. We don’t really know what we’re doing and when we do, it doesn’t seem to help.

There’s been a lot of talk about Jack White wanting to work with me, and I’ve always admired him, and of course, he lives in Nashville, too.

Michael Jordan changed so much in basketball, he took his power to make a difference. It’s so much going on in music right now and somebody has to make a difference.

I’ve copyrighted 3,000 songs.

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

I’m just changing the game because I know what the fans want and the people want ‚cause I’m a fan of hip-hop.

Benefits should be conferred gradually; and in that way they will taste better.

The human body is strange and flawed and unpredictable. The human body has many secrets, and it does not divulge them to anyone, except those who have learned to wait.

I have learned that I really do have discipline, self-control, and patience. But they were given to me as a seed, and it’s up to me to choose to develop them.

I thought that I wrote songs and wrote music, and that was sort of what I thought I was best at doing. And because nobody else was ever doing my songs, I felt – you know, I had to go out and do them.

I think we’re about ready for a new feeling to enter music. I think that will come from the Arabic world.

And God help Bruce Springsteen when they decide he’s no longer God… They’ll turn on him, and I hope he survives it.

I probably could have toured off ‚Trilogy‘ for the rest of my life. It definitely changed the culture. No one can do a trilogy again without thanking The Weeknd.

A lot of people ask me, ‚How did you have the courage to walk up to record labels when you were 12 or 13 and jump right into the music industry?‘ It’s because I knew I could never feel the kind of rejection that I felt in middle school. Because in the music industry, if they’re gonna say no to you, at least they’re gonna be polite about it.

I’ve never written a song in my life. It’s all a big hoax.

I think the first thing you should know is that nobody in country music ‚made it‘ the same way. It’s all different. There’s no blueprint for success, and sometimes you just have to work at it.

Learning to make films is very easy. Learning what to make films about is very hard.

Cardi B put a lot of work in.

When I write, when I’m going hot, I don’t want to write more than four hours in a row. After that, you’re pushing it.

People think because I’ve got some success, I’ve made it, but in my eyes it’s like, ‚How long has Jay Z been in the business? How many albums has he got?‘ Not that I’m trying to be Jay Z, but I am trying to be around for a long time.

I write my own songs. I made my own videos. I pick my producers. Nothing goes out without my permission. It’s all authentic.

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

Madonna and I are very different. Just saying. We’re very different. I wouldn’t make that comparison at all, and I don’t mean to disrespect Madonna: she’s a nice lady, and she’s had a fantastic, huge career – biggest pop star of all time.

Rock stars are good at making noise.

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

I grew up writing songs in my room on GarageBand, and I would make the beats just out of layering my vocals over and over again. Very Imogen Heap-inspired.

It’s insane that, since the Beatles and Dylan, it’s assumed that all musicians should do everything themselves. It’s that ridiculous, teenage idea that when Mick Jagger sings, he’s telling you something about his own life. It’s so arrogant to think that people would want to know about it anyway!

I want to make pop cool again, and the only way I can do that is by being ambitious and grand.

We think we have solved the mystery of creation. Maybe we should patent the universe and charge everyone royalties for their existence.

Partnering with Atlantic Records creates the opportunity to take what we’re doing to the next level, without compromising.

For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.