There weren’t a lot of career opportunities in crazy-fast hardcore punk, so you didn’t have a lot of ambition, just the love and passion to play music with your friends.

I enjoy singing my songs in front of people.

When I got to New York City when I was 18, I started playing in clubs in Brooklyn – I have good friends and devoted fans on the underground scene, but we were playing for each other at that point – and that was it.

It was always a plan that we were going to have a retail side with what were doing musically, like an Apple store or Nike Town. I wanted something where you can come get everything – ‚Marathon‘ or ‚All Money‘ or ‚Crenshaw‘ – and make it like an experience. Especially with what Crenshaw and Slauson meant to my story.

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

I have a family, loving aunts, and a good home. No, on the surface I seem to have everything except my one true friend. All I think about when I’m with friends is having a good time. I can’t bring myself to talk about anything but ordinary everyday things. We don’t seem to be able to get any closer, and that’s the problem.

As soon as I accomplish one goal, I replace it with another one. I try not to get too far ahead of myself. I just say to myself, ‚All right, well, I’d like to headline a tour,‘ and then when I get there, we’ll see what my next goal is.

I became interested in folk music because I had to make it somehow.

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.

There is no friend as loyal as a book.

John Lennon was definitely my favorite Beatle, hands down.

It’s a privilege to serve the poor, to be servants of noble Africans, but I better belong in the rehearsal room or in the studio with my band. That’s where I want to be and I still wake up in the morning with melodies in my head.

A lot of people can’t stand touring but to me it’s like breathing. I do it because I’m driven to do it.

Let it be our delight to find our society in the circle of which Jesus is the center, and let us make those our friends who are the friends of Jesus.

One of the interesting things about having little musical knowledge is that you generate surprising results sometimes; you move to places you wouldn’t if you knew better.

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!

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.

A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?

I don’t have many friends; I’m very much a loner. As a child I was very isolated, and I’ve never been really close to anyone.

Cooking is about passion, so it may look slightly temperamental in a way that it’s too assertive to the naked eye.

Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.

I’m in awe of the universe, but I don’t necessarily believe there’s an intelligence or agent behind it. I do have a passion for the visual in religious rituals, though, even though they may be completely empty and bereft of substance.

I just love working with Eminem. He’s just one of my favorite rappers, and his lyrics – he’s a true poet, and I enjoy that about him.

When you are aspiring to the highest place, it is honorable to reach the second or even the third rank.

It is easy enough to be friendly to one’s friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.

Trust not yourself, but your defects to know, make use of every friend and every foe.

A lot of people from my generation of music are so focused on playing things correctly or to perfection that they’re stuck in that safe place.

Never injure a friend, even in jest.

I really wish I knew what I was doing because I’d be writing hit songs every minute.

We were all on this ship in the sixties, our generation, a ship going to discover the New World. And the Beatles were in the crow’s nest of that ship.

As a young kid, I really wanted to be rich.

Look, when I started out, mainstream culture was Sinatra, Perry Como, Andy Williams, Sound of Music. There was no fitting into it then and of course, there’s no fitting into it now.

I always wanted more – more of everything.

The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me.

I thought it completely absurd to mention my name in the same breath as the presidency.

Zappa was very technical and impressed by things that were musically challenging – weird time signatures, strange keys, awkward chord sequences. Zappa was important to me as an example of everything I didn’t want to do. I’m very grateful to him, actually.

Rap was my drug.

This thing that I do with caring about the message in my music, it’s not separate from my work as a commercial artist; they’re totally one and the same. I’m always going to be thinking about what my voice means.

Tupac, Biggie, Jay. Your usual suspects. These were the people that was played in my household.

Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them.

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

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.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

And I try to give the best bang for the buck. I love performing more than anything else.

Before finding music, I didn’t have too many aspirations. I wanted to hang out, make a little money from whatever I had to do.

I want to keep making records as long as I can, but I don’t know how long you can be taken seriously in rap.

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

Fans are my favorite thing in the world. I’ve never been the type of artist who has that line drawn between their friends and their fans. The line’s always been really blurred for me. I’ll hang out with them after the show. I’ll hang out with them before the show. If I see them in the mall, I’ll stand there and talk to them for 10 minutes.

I think if I keep working in the way that I am, from the heart and from passion and with love, well, the fruits of that will keep coming.

Whenever I make music, it reflects where I’m at mentally.

I am not solicitous to examine particularly everything here, which indeed could not be done in fifty years, because my desire is to make all possible discoveries, and return to your Highnesses, if it please our Lord, in April.

Me and my dad are friends. We’re cool. I’ll never be disappointed again, because I don’t expect anything anymore from him. I just let him exist, and that’s how we get along.

Rejoicing in our joy, not suffering over our suffering, makes someone a friend.

One of my goals from really early on was that if I was ever fortunate enough to be successful in music, I would want to stay the same person and the same songwriter.

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.

Nobody likes to fail. I want to succeed in everything I do, which isn’t much. But the things that I’m really passionate about, if I fail at those, if I’m not successful, what do I have?

My music will go on forever. Maybe it’s a fool say that, but when me know facts me can say facts. My music will go on forever.

The ruling passion, be it what it will. The ruling passion conquers reason still.

I wanted very much to learn to draw, for a reason that I kept to myself: I wanted to convey an emotion I have about the beauty of the world.

A youth, when at home, should be filial and, abroad, respectful to his elders. He should be earnest and truthful. He should overflow in love to all and cultivate the friendship of the good. When he has time and opportunity, after the performance of these things, he should employ them in polite studies.