‚Thursday‘ is a conceptual album. Whatever that situation was, I spent the whole album focusing on that situation.

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.

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 guess I’m just inspired to tell stories.

Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool.

The boys know they’re from Southeast Asia, and they have their food and their music and their friends, and they have a pride particular to them.

By the sole fact of his entering into ‚Thought,‘ man represents something entirely singular and absolutely unique in the field of our experience. On a single planet, there could not be more than one centre of emergence for reflexion.

Rap was my drug.

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.

If I wasn’t Bob Dylan, I’d probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself.

The end is the beginning of all things, Suppressed and hidden, Awaiting to be released through the rhythm Of pain and pleasure.

I would say that jazz is my own language.

This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.

As I’m traveling around, I meet many small children. And when I look at a small and think how we’ve harmed this beautiful planet since I was that age, I feel a kind of desperation, anger, shame. I don’t know what I feel; I just don’t know what the emotion is.

I think what made it difficult for people to get, and still makes it difficult for people to get, is the theatrical nature of the work and the fact that, my music doesn’t exist without the performance-art element.

One always dies too soon or too late. And yet, life is there, finished: the line is drawn, and it must all be added up. You are nothing other than your life.

I’m not into albums that are meant to sound perfect.

Latin music is universal.

I don’t think there’s such a thing as autobiographical fiction. If I say it happened, it happened, even if only in my mind.

Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.

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

Life is a song to me.

Fondly we think we honor merit then, When we but praise ourselves in other men.

My only scheme was to be a rapper.

I’ve always been a fan of melody and emotional melancholy, whether it was Rites of Spring or Tears for Fears or Neil Young. If I hear a song that has a sweet melody, I’m a sucker for it, whether it’s Linkin Park or Little Richard.

One has to pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while one is still alive.

Music comes to me more readily than words.

The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.

Upon the creatures we have made, we are, ourselves, at last, dependent.

I’m a big fan of songs like Joe Cocker’s ‚You Are So Beautiful‘ and Eric Clapton’s ‚Wonderful Tonight‘ – songs that go straight to the point.

Some people are making music just for numbers and views.

I’m just writing, writing, writing. I keep these tablets on me until I’m inspired to go back in and make the music. I never take a break from my pen, because I pride myself on that.

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot? The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

In Puerto Rico we dance to everything.

Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight.

Once you get into this great stream of history, you can’t get out.

Anybody that doesn’t like Cardi B a hater!

In the normal flow of a conversation, our attention is divided. We hear parts of what other people are saying, in order to follow and keep the conversation going. At the same time, we’re planning what we’ll say next, some exciting story of our own.

Who would ever think that so much went on in the soul of a young girl?

And later, if I ever felt that I was getting swept away by the craziness of being in a band, well, I’d go back to Virginia.

It’s not true I had nothing on, I had the radio on.

If it’s illegal to rock and roll, throw my ass in jail!

To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past I extend my sincere thoughts and deep sympathy. With the benefit of historical hindsight we can all see things which we would wish had been done differently or not at all.

Basically, I live to do gigs.

It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It’s called living.

It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done.

The question isn’t, ‚What do we want to know about people?‘, It’s, ‚What do people want to tell about themselves?‘

In many ways, I’ve been writing personal stories all my life.

Darn the wheel of the world! Why must it continually turn over? Where is the reverse gear?

The first rap CD that I had, it was so different for me. The energy, the wordplay, all that caught my attention, and I liked it.

In Hawaii, some of the biggest radio stations are reggae. The local bands are heavily influenced by Bob Marley.

In 7th grade, I believe, I wrote my first rap song. It was about everything I was seeing, everything that was going on around me.

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!

I wrote a few children’s books… not on purpose.

I have suffered most of the things I write about – or my friends have.

At ev’ry word a reputation dies.

I’m not interested in cutting the feet off my characters or stretching them to make them fit my certain political view.

Old age is just a record of one’s whole life.

You have to be a bastard to make it, and that’s a fact. And the Beatles are the biggest bastards on earth.

One advantage in keeping a diary is that you become aware with reassuring clarity of the changes which you constantly suffer.

I like telling stories, and I tell stories that interest me. It would be boring to have to go to nothing but the best restaurants. That would be a misery to me.