The Heads were the only band on that scene that had a groove.

Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.

I never went to rock concerts when I was a kid. I didn’t see any rock & roll bands. I had posters on my wall. I had Beatles records.

I don’t know how the rap game is, because I’m a fan of reality, and the rap game’s entertainment.

You know, Nirvana used to start rehearsals with the three of us just jamming. For, like, a half an hour, just noise and freeform crap – and usually it was crap. But sometimes things would come from it, and some songs on Nevermind came from that, and ‚Heart Shaped Box‘ and stuff on ‚In Utero‘ just happened that way.

I know a lot of people who wouldn’t be comfortable with everything that comes with being in a band as big as Nirvana. The thing that I don’t understand is not appreciating that simple gift of being able to play music.

My only scheme was to be a rapper.

To the audience, it’s like I’m changing the subject every five seconds, but to me, my show’s almost like a 90-minute song that I know exactly. I wrote every note, and I know exactly where everything is.

I could sing you a thousand and one doo-wop songs. I love the simplicity in that music. It’s not super-poetic, it’s just from the heart.

My songwriting is like extending a hand to the listener.

Anything that encourages people to pick up an instrument and play, I’m fully behind.

I think ‚Hail to the Chief‘ has a nice ring to it.

So there’s no guarantee if you like the music you will empathize with the culture and the people who made it. It doesn’t necessarily happen. I think it can, but it doesn’t necessarily happen. Which is kind of a shame.

I don’t think I’d ever apologise for music I make, no.

I wish I could play bass like Larry Graham or Bootsy Collins. My God, I’d give up just about everything else for that.

I liberate minds with my music. That’s more important than liberating a few people from apartheid or whatever.

I was arrested for lip-syncing karaoke.

I really appreciate the moments that I was able to win rap album of the year or whatever.

Songs are my diaries; they always have been. You have to put your trust in everyone because putting down those real, personal details and thoughts that make a song authentic also opens you right up. I am constantly misunderstood; a lot of people just don’t get me.

When I listen to music these days, and I hear Pro Tools and drums that sound like a machine – it kinda sucks the life out of music.

I wanted to have the adoration of John Lennon but have the anonymity of Ringo Starr. I didn’t want to be a frontman. I just wanted to be back there and still be a rock and roll star at the same time.

Occasionally, I hanker for the time when I sold more records, but I don’t sit and drool about it. When I do look at early footage of Talking Heads, I realise I was just a wreck.

I think music is one of the hero/sheroes of the African-American existence.

I’ve had mixtapes that have been better than albums I’ve heard from other artists. I take my time; I put my heart into it.

I’ve gotten used to being Frank Ocean.

Music is the melody whose text is the world.

I have so many playlists full of Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, Chris Brown.

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

I hate talking about music, to tell you the truth.

From the moment I started writing raps, I was always aware of the pressure. I always wanted to live up to how huge Snoop got, how huge Dre got, how huge Pac got. I was always aware.

When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.

My songs always sound a lot better in person than they do on the record.

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

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

I just want to keep writing music.

I’m putting out this free music, constantly putting it out.

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

There’s been people who’ve rapped and produced – like Kanye – but I don’t feel like on the rapping side there’s ever been a producer who can rap as good as I think I can rap.

At 13 years old, I realized I could start my own band. I could write my own song, I could record my own record. I could start my own label. I could release my own record. I could book my own shows. I could write and publish my own fanzine. I could silk-screen my own T-shirt. I could do this all myself.

When I’m writing, I’m thinking about how the songs are going to play live. Fifty bars of rap don’t translate onstage. No matter how potent the music, you lose the crowd. They want a hook; they want to sing your stuff back to you.

My songs are like my children – I expect them to support me when I’m old.

A lot of people don’t realise I came out of the Smoky Mountains with a load of songs.

All my records and videos were groundbreaking.

Every day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music and rings the whole day through, and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life march, as you will.

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.

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

Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

I never wanted to sing. I just wanted to play rhythm guitar – hide in the back and just play.

I do value the respect I get from my contemporaries, but to have Oasis cover my song, to have Puff Daddy cover a song, to have Goldie come along to my gigs – that’s where my ego is at. To have my fellow musicians like what I do, that’s very cool.

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

With music, you often don’t have to translate it. It just affects you, and you don’t know why.

I would love to study guitar or trumpet.

I can’t see myself singing the same song twice in a row. That’s terrible.

There’s something about pulling out a real tape from a shelf and looking at it and knowing that ‚Everlong‘ is on it, or ‚Best of You‘ is on it, and it’s really special.

Speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again.

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.

When I was a teenager, my biggest lessons came from Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, George Strait, Rascal Flatts and Brad Paisley. I learned so much from opening up for those artists, and it also taught me how to treat your opening acts and make them feel like they’re part of a family, not just a tour.

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 wouldn’t call myself a synaesthete in the sense that Nabokov was. But I’ll talk about a sound as being cold blue or dark brown. For descriptive purposes, yes, I often see colors when I’m listening to music and think, ‚Oh, there’s not enough sort of yellowy stuff in here, or not enough white.‘

Part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians, poets, and artists, and zoologists, and historians. They also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world. But if it hadn’t been computer science, these people would have been doing amazing things in other fields.

The writer must be a participant in the scene… like a film director who writes his own scripts, does his own camera work, and somehow manages to film himself in action, as the protagonist or at least the main character.