There’s something about music that encourages people to want to know more about the person that made it, and where it was recorded, what year it was done, what they were listening to, and all this kind of stuff. There’s something that invites all this obsessive behavior.

The most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.

Don’t you love it that Prince doesn’t use Twitter? Don’t you think he’s somewhere on a unicorn?

I think that by staying true to myself and making music from my heart, the blessings come.

I think I’ve committed the one really bad English crime, which is I’ve risen above my station. I was supposed to be a pop star, and suddenly I’m claiming that I’m an artist of some kind.

I try to sprinkle a little gems and jewels in the music that people could use in their own life.

There’s always gonna be rock n‘ roll bands, there’s always gonna be kids that love rock n‘ roll records, and there will always be rock n‘ roll.

You always admire what you really don’t understand.

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

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

Ninety percent of all music is always crap, and when too many people decide they’re going to have guitar bands, then ninety percent of them are going to be crap. It’s just a given law.

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

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.

I never listen to ‚Nevermind.‘ I haven’t listened to it since we put it out. That says something.

Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed.

Music is the art of the prophets and the gift of God.

When I was born, that was the music my mother was listening to. Michael Jackson is a third parent to me.

At the end of the day, who I really and truly am is a little girl who loved to play the piano.

It’s a curse. I ask God to take this away from me all the time. I do not like being an artist.

Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret.

Neil Young is my hero, and such a great example. You know what that guy has been doing for the past 40 years? Making music. That’s what that guy does. Sometimes you pay attention, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes he hands it to you, sometimes he keeps it to himself. He’s a good man with a beautiful family and wonderful life.

OK, so what’s the speed of dark?

If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.

A true artist is expected to be all that is noble-minded, and this is not altogether a mistake; on the other hand, however, in what a mean way are critics allowed to pounce upon us.

You know how you either grow up in a Michael Jackson house or a Prince house? For me it was Michael Jackson. I could never decide whether I wanted to be Michael Jackson or marry him.

I get so excited when a song I wrote that’s very personal to me goes No. 1 and I look down and see people singing the words back to me.

It’s going to be the year of the sharp elbow and the quick tongue.

One of my most popular songs, ‚Satellites,‘ I paid $300 for that beat on SoundClick.

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

Who’s to say what’s a good voice and not a good voice?

Once you’ve changed who you are or who you’ve portrayed in your music, the fans, they’ll catch it… Once I feel like the world knows me for anything else but my music, then I feel like I failed.

Here’s what I think about music and journalism: The most important thing is to just press play.

‚Two Voices,‘ from my album with Peter Schwalm, is an intact dream-poem. I awoke one night with an image of a piece of paper and all the words of the poem written on it, so I just blundered down to the kitchen table and ‚copied it out.‘

If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words.

Listen with your eyes for feelings.

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

Music is the voice that tells us that the human race is greater than it knows.

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.

You can’t imagine parlor ballads drifting out of high-rise multi-towered buildings. That kind of music existed in a more timeless state of life.

I won’t be satisfied until people want to hear me sing without looking at me. Of course, that doesn’t mean I want them to stop looking.

Music is the melody whose text is the world.

Music in itself carries a whole set of messages which are very, very rich and complex, and the words either serve to exclude certain ones or point up certain others.

I started playing violin in the 5th grade. They had a program in school where you could get out of class to go play instruments. So I raised my hand, left out of class, me and a bunch of my homeboys, just to get out of class for that day. They asked what instrument you wanted to play and I picked the violin.

In Puerto Rico we dance to everything.

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.

I just kept touring and touring until it became second nature to go onstage, perform, and sing.

I would love to study guitar or trumpet.

I want my fans to love themselves. It’s almost like I want to hypnotize them so when they hear my music they love themselves instantly.

Mine is only one of the millions of hearts broken over the death of Whitney Houston, I will always be grateful and in awe of the wonderful performance she did on my song, and I can truly say from the bottom of my heart, ‚Whitney, I will always love you. You will be missed.‘

For me, when you are have people wondering what is next, what is coming out, you are on the right track.

A chorus is not easy.

I think about food literally all day every day. It’s a thing.

I don’t really like to call myself a brand, and I don’t like to think of myself as a brand. I’m a singer, a songwriter, a musician and a performer. And an actress, and all the other things that I do. When you add it all together, some might call it a brand, but that’s not my focus.

Madonna, I think, is the greatest visual musical artist that we’ve ever had. If you look at her photo log, the photographers that she was able to work with throughout her career framed her in the proper way. It was the proper context. It was that visual that made sure that everything was gonna cut through in a certain way.

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.

I’m the same kid who used to hop the trains with headphones and just go to downtown Manhattan, walk around and listen to music or walk through the city. The fame restricts that. It’s a small complaint in comparison to the benefits I get from it, but the restrictive part is what I don’t like – and the fact that it’s not reversible.

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.

Glorious bouquets and storms of applause are the trimmings which every artist naturally enjoys.

Years ago, when I first started being a big star, I had fans that were fanatical. It was when ‚Jolene‘ was a big hit.

I’d love to do a duet, always wanted to work with Madonna, but she never asked.

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