They say you can rap about anything except for Jesus, that means guns, sex, lies, video tapes, but if I talk about God my record won’t get played Huh?

The Koran shows every sign of being thrown together by human beings, as do all the other holy books.

God tells us not to judge one another, no matter what anyone’s sexual preferences are or if they’re black, brown or purple.

I’m really trying to dredge up what one might call intellectual and moral material. For example, when do you realize that you are an American? What age does that happen to you? When do you realize what religion your parents practice? When does it all become conscious? I was interested in exploring all of that.

Many of my fans often tell me that they listen to my songs to get through things. And therefore, obviously, I hope that they can picture being in a place where things are better… I hope my songs can bring people to a calm place.

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.

Man is not born to atheism. He is born to believe.

Mariah and Whitney Houston were my goddesses growing up.

If I were going to convert to any religion I would probably choose Catholicism because it at least has female saints and the Virgin Mary.

That’s why I hate to get started in these jam sessions. I’m always the last one to leave.

On the other hand, what I like my music to do to me is awaken the ghosts inside of me. Not the demons, you understand, but the ghosts.

Even though I’ve been putting out bodies of work for years, ‚Beauty Behind the Madness‘ felt like the beginning.

What I’m hoping is that every album I’m going to do will give my audience something different, and that they’ll grow as I do.

I believe in the religion of Islam. I believe in Allah and peace.

Editing is now the easiest thing on earth to do, and all the things that evolved out of word processing – ‚Oh, let’s put that sentence there, let’s get rid of this‘ – have become commonplace in films and music too.

Pretty much my whole life, I’ve been a performer and have loved singing and writing songs in my room for my own ears.

God to me is love.

And I saw the sax line-up that he had behind him and I thought, I’m going to learn the saxophone. When I grow up, I’m going to play in his band. So I sort of persuaded my dad to get me a kind of a plastic saxophone on the hire purchase plan.

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.‘

‚Jolene‘ has been very popular all of these years, even overseas.

I am a Catholic, not so committed to the church, but to the idea of the Virgin, the female face of God.

There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt.

Philosophy is the highest music.

Everybody has a job to do. There are people in Iraq on both sides of this war who do what they do for religious reasons, and they feel with God on their side. Some people are good at annihilating people. Maybe that’s their gift.

‚Doo-wop‘ is a very special word for me. Because I grew up listening to my dad who, as a Fifties rock & roll head, loved doo-wop music.

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed around – the music and the ideas.

I never wanted to look pretty on stage and sing about something we’ve all heard about before.

No religion has mandated killing others as a requirement for its sustenance or promotion.

U2 is an original species… there are colours and feelings and emotional terrain that we occupy that is ours and ours alone.

If music be the food of love, play on.

Bob Dylan is like an alien on this earth, and I love him! I cried when I saw him play live because I was so close to him.

If I make music and people hate it, you know, whatever. I’ll die someday, and one day, they will too.

The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.

As a member of the Church, you have made sacred covenants with the Lord.

John Lennon was definitely my favorite Beatle, hands down.

My message is that God is a good God.

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.

Unless we place our religion and our treasure in the same thing, religion will always be sacrificed.

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

Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. They’re my biggest heroes. I love everything about Leonard Cohen: his lyrics and his voice. He seems like a really clever man, and Bob Dylan does as well. He’s just really cool.

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 always use Michael as, first and foremost, a vocal inspiration, and ‚Off the Wall‘ was definitely the one that made me feel like I could sing.

I respect the fact that many denominations have different points of view with respect to gay marriage and they can hold that in the sanctity in the place of their religion and not bless them or solemnize them.

I made an album I’m very proud of, and that’s about it.

I’ve started doing book reviews for Barnes & Noble! They saw that I did a lot of book reviews on the site, and they figured that it might not be a bad thing if they got me to do some for them as well. I gave them five categories I’d be interested in reviewing, from art to fiction to music.

I wrote ‚Channel Orange‘ in two weeks. The end product wasn’t always that gritty, real-life depiction of the real struggle that happened.

No one tells me what to do with my music. Real. My mom doesn’t tell what to say, how is someone else going to?

The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it’s not going to happen. I’m fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years.

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.

Extremely religious, legalistic people have a criticism or judgment about everyone and everything. They just have a way of bringing people down with what they say.

Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others. Their fear is only their inability to face what is real, and I can’t vent any anger against them; I only feel this appalling sadness. Somewhere in their upbringing, they were shielded against the total facts of our existence.

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 love the Sex Pistols. I’m a big Beach Boys fan and a huge Zeppelin and Queen fan.

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.

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

The style of God venerated in the church, mosque, or synagogue seems completely different from the style of the natural universe.

By respect for life we become religious in a way that is elementary, profound and alive.

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

I do not concern myself with gods and spirits either good or evil nor do I serve any.

I tell you the groans of the damned in hell are the deep bass of the universal anthem of praise that shall ascend to the throne of my God for ever and ever.