The boys know they’re from Southeast Asia, and they have their food and their music and their friends, and they have a pride particular to them.

There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate, upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.

All of my friends who have younger siblings who are going to college or high school – my number one piece of advice is: You should learn how to program.

And later, if I ever felt that I was getting swept away by the craziness of being in a band, well, I’d go back to Virginia.

If music be the food of love, play on.

We need to try to unite audiences, unite countries, join musical tastes, unite people.

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.

The sound and music are 50% of the entertainment in a movie.

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

You go to a festival, you know you’re not going to play all new material at a festival. The audience is not there for that. I’ve made that mistake, but you find out pretty quickly.

Preparation for a mission is important. A mission is a voluntary act of service to God and humankind. Missionaries support that privilege with their personal savings. Parents, families, friends, and donors to the General Missionary Fund may also assist.

The greatest thrill in my life was to represent the United States of America.

I just have a thing in my brain that when I’m about to do something that’s genuine or authentic, I think of it in song form. I’ll be like, ‚Yo, this is a human emotion that no one talks about.‘

I thought I would try to be gay for a while, but I’m just more sexually attracted to women. But I’m really glad that I found a few gay friends, because it totally saved me from becoming a monk or something.

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.

I never went to rock concerts when I was a kid. I didn’t see any rock & roll bands.

I’m the king of the anthems.

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

There’s more good music being made now than ever before.

Songs don’t have to be about going out on Saturday night and having a good rink-up and driving home and crashing cars. A lot of what I’ve done is about alienation… about where you fit in society.

For me, ‚risky‘ is revealing what really happened in my life through music. Risky is writing confessional songs and telling the true story about a person with enough details so everyone knows who that person is.

Lyrics are so important, but they’re really underrated.

I say, ‚Yeah, Taylor Swift.‘ I think she is a smart, beautiful girl. I think she’s making all the right moves. She’s got a good head on her shoulders. She’s surrounded with wonderful people. Her songs are great. She keeps herself anchored. She knows who she is, and she’s living and standing by that.

The vulgar boil, the learned roast, an egg.

Music is a really great creative tool for me, for different roles.

It took me years to eat a lot of shellfish. I was probably 20 years old before I had even seen a shrimp cocktail. I like oysters, but fried.

I realized quickly what Mandela and Tambo meant to ordinary Africans. It was a place where they could come and find a sympathetic ear and a competent ally, a place where they would not be either turned away or cheated, a place where they might actually feel proud to be represented by men of their own skin color.

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

Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries.

If it’s good music, it’s good music.

I couldn’t have written things like ‚Low‘ and ‚Heroes,‘ those particular albums, if it hadn’t have been for Berlin and the kind of atmosphere I felt there.

The first four and a half years was me in the studio every day, writing songs for other people. I had jobs, too – eleven jobs. I worked at Kinko’s, Fatburger, Subway – I was a sandwich artist – and I was a claims processor at Allstate Insurance.

One of my lungs is half gone, and the other half, because I smoked for years, has a lesion. So I can’t swim anymore and had the swimming pool covered over. Now it’s what I call the dance pavilion, and so I and my friends sit out and put music on and watch people dance.

Think of our physical sustenance. It is truly heaven-sent. The necessities of air, food, and water all come to us as gifts from a loving Heavenly Father.

I never listen to the radio unless I rent a car.

The other night I ate at a real nice family restaurant. Every table had an argument going.

I love good, loud speakers.

When I listen to the radio, I just hear so much music that doesn’t even sound like people. The vocals are all tuned, and the drums are all fake.

I would like to do a duet with Taylor Hanson, because I have loved Hanson since I was 8.

But when I hear a great song, I can’t help but be inspired by it, regardless of whatever genre that song falls under.

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

One and the same thing can at the same time be good, bad, and indifferent, e.g., music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good nor bad to the deaf.

I’ve been in the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus since I was 8.

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

I don’t know if I ever feel totally great about a record when I put it out. With every record that I put out, someone has literally got to come pry it from me because when I listen to my own music, I just hear flaws in it.

I am impelled, not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession.

To all the musicians who are making reggaeton, let’s put some more effort into it and bring something new to the people!

Rap was my drug.

My music definitely comes from a place of experience. Everything connects to a truth.

I’ve always been a fan of melody and emotional melancholy, whether it was Rites of Spring or Tears for Fears or Neil Young. If I hear a song that has a sweet melody, I’m a sucker for it, whether it’s Linkin Park or Little Richard.

Man, I’m the No. 1 living and breathing rock star. I am Axl Rose; I am Jim Morrison; I am Jimi Hendrix.

People are already finding ways to make their music and play it in front of people and have a life in music, I guess, and I think that’s pretty much all you can ask.

Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman.

The prospect of music being detachable from time and place meant that one could start to think of music as a part of one’s furniture.

You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols and cartridges; the old ones, grub.

Understand, when you eat meat, that something did die. You have an obligation to value it – not just the sirloin but also all those wonderful tough little bits.

I wish I could tell you me and my rock band were traveling around, strung out. No, we were a family band. Straight Partridge Family.

If I had only one sermon to preach it would be a sermon against pride.

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

We can come to look upon the deaths of our enemies with as much regret as we feel for those of our friends, namely, when we miss their existence as witnesses to our success.