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.

There ought to be an artistic depot where the artist need only hand in his artwork in order to receive what he asks for. As things are, one must be half a business man, and how can one understand – good heavens! – that’s what I really call troublesome.

I wanted a name I could shape the music towards. I was going to Miami quite a lot at the time, speaking a lot of Spanish with my friends from Cuba – ‚Lana Del Rey‘ reminded us of the glamour of the seaside. It sounded gorgeous coming off the tip of the tongue.

No, I can’t do rap music!

Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.

My role in society, or any artist’s or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.

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

In memory everything seems to happen to music.

I listen to my old records and I think, ‚How did I ever get on the radio?‘

Whenever I write a novel, music just sort of naturally slips in (much like cats do, I suppose).

For some reason, I’m really comfortable talking about my personal life in songs.

Writing for other artists helped me figure out that magic you have to capture to make everyone connect with a song.

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!

In high school I wanted to be a rock star and was in a lot of bands.

All of my music is honest.

‚House of Balloons‘ was special because I had no deadlines, and nobody knew me, so there were no expectations. Spent a year making it perfect. Every song had at least, like, 7 different versions to them before picking the right one.

If you write in the same way over and over again, like, in the same place with the same techniques and with the same people, you’re sort of writing the same song over and over again.

These are all personal crises, I’m sure, that I manifest in a song format and project into physical situations. You make little stories up about how you feel. It’s as simple as that.

Well, I thought the deal was, when you went to work for the government you weren’t supposed to make money!

It’s nice, I think, when people use your music for things you didn’t think of.

I was a strange, loud little kid who could sit at the piano and kill a Beethoven piece.

My favorite record label of all time is Motown. That era of music was my favorite.

Any artist, the work you do, if it’s a painting or if it’s a performance, you hope it translates to a common denominator with the people that they see something in their own life in there. Or they see something in somebody else’s life. That’s what’s fun about sharing art.

Let me tell you something about Tunechi – about that boy. That boy comes to the studio every day and grind as if he doesn’t have a dollar in his pocket.

I performed in a bowling alley before while people were still bowling. Cut the check, and I will perform anywhere.

I’m personally more struck by visual things more than musical.

A good compromise, a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence; or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, ‚Huh. It works. It makes sense.‘

How to play music may be known. At the commencement of the piece, all the parts should sound together. As it proceeds, they should be in harmony while severally distinct and flowing without break, and thus on to the conclusion.

The artist in me cries out for design.

Work is a necessary evil to be avoided.

I listen to music that is of our time and I just get angry.

I think it is perfectly natural for any artist to admire intensely and love a young man. It is an incident in the life of almost every artist.

You listen to Charlie Parker or John Coltrane before they found their voice, they sounded different. And when you listen to them after they found their voice on their instruments, they sound more confident and in control. Artists have that, too.

I’m not interested in possible complexities. I regard song structure as a graph paper.

The taxpayer – that’s someone who works for the federal government but doesn’t have to take the civil service examination.

I decided to pursue music, so I dropped out of school and I told my parents I didn’t want any money from them. I got three jobs and I just hit the ground running.

No press, no television. If my mom calls and says, ‚Did you hear about?‘ I don’t want to know nothing about anything that is going on in relation to music. I shut it all off.

I think business has to be stupider. I want to do really straightforward, stupid business – just talk to me like a 4-year-old. And I refuse to negotiate. I do not negotiate. I can collaborate. But I’m an artist, so as soon as you negotiate, you’re being compromised.

I wanted to prove the sustaining power of music.

Fiction is based on reality unless you’re a fairytale artist.

If you talk bad about country music, it’s like saying bad things about my momma. Them’s fightin‘ words.

ESPN is a great organization to work for.

I put out one album one week, and I’m already worried about the next one. I feel a lot of emotion throughout the course of a day. But not to the point where you need to be worried about me.

I didn’t want to play it boring and safe. I also didn’t want to innovate too much. Second albums, man, they’re even scarier than first ones.

Wagner manages to convey emotion with music better than anyone, before or since.

Music from my fourth year began to be the first of my youthful occupations. Thus early acquainted with the gracious muse who tuned my soul to pure harmonies, I became fond of her, and, as it often seemed to me, she of me.

Guilt is cancer. Guilt will confine you, torture you, destroy you as an artist. It’s a black wall. It’s a thief.

I was ready to quit music. It felt to me like music equalled death.

I’m a working-class person, working with class.

I love story songs because I’ve always loved books.

The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected.

I’ve accomplished enough with the music that I haven’t had to go out there and do other things to over-saturate.

I’ve been asking myself: ‚Why put together these things – CDs, albums?‘ The answer I came up with is, well, sometimes it’s artistically viable. It’s not just a random collection of songs. Sometimes the songs have a common thread, even if it’s not obvious or even conscious on the artists‘ part.

Lyrics are the only thing to do with music that haven’t been made easier technically.

Let me remind you that credit is the lifeblood of business, the lifeblood of prices and jobs.

The album requires a certain focus of mine that I can’t really explain – let’s just say it’s all I can really do while I’m doing it.

The lyrics are constructed as empirically as the music. I don’t set out to say anything very important.

Writing ‚We Are Never Getting Back Together‘ was one of the most hilarious experiences I have ever had in the studio because it just happened so naturally.

Every day, my mom and I would watch a different Judy Garland VHS. I love how she tells a story when she sings. It was just about her voice and the words she was singing – no strings attached or silly hair or costumes, just a woman singing her heart out. I feel like that doesn’t happen that much anymore.

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.

When I was writing the Destiny’s Child songs, it was a big thing to be that young and taking control. And the label at the time didn’t know that we were going to be that successful, so they gave us all control. And I got used to it.