To all the musicians, to the Academy, with all due respect, reggaeton is part of our Latin culture. And its representing as much as any other genre at the worldwide level.

None of my kids want to be actors. They are actually very interested in being musicians. I think they like the process of film from the outside. Mad is interested in editing. Pax loves music and deejaying.

My music is influenced by L.A. culture.

Doing music to pay bills is an uncomfortable situation. I never wanted to be in that situation.

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

I wanted to be Gerry Mulligan, only, see, I didn’t have any kind of technique. So I thought, well, baritone sax is kind of easier; I can manage that – except I couldn’t afford a baritone, so I bought an alto, which was the same fingering.

The darkness, the loop of negative thoughts on repeat, clamours and interferes with the music I hear in my head.

The lyrics are constructed as empirically as the music. I don’t set out to say anything very important.

I try to devote my afternoons to making music in my home studio, but it’s a lot more fun hanging out with musicians and friends, and trying subtly to influence a band than making your own stuff.

I knew the second I finished the first record – ‚House Of Balloons‘ – and had all this material leftover that a trilogy would be best.

America’s promises do not come with a price tag. We meet our commitments. We bear our burdens. That’s one of the reasons why almost every country on Earth sees America as stronger and more respected today than they did eight years ago when I took office.

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.

There’s a lot of pressure putting an album out all over the world and hoping people everywhere like it.

Speaking purely from a musical standpoint, I think I am a great performer.

The prospect of music being detachable from time and place meant that one could start to think of music as a part of one’s furniture.

Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.

Singing aloud leaves you with a sense of levity and contentedness.

I think ‚Invisible‘ is a great song, but I don’t know how accessible it is.

Madonna and I are very different. Just saying. We’re very different. I wouldn’t make that comparison at all, and I don’t mean to disrespect Madonna: she’s a nice lady, and she’s had a fantastic, huge career – biggest pop star of all time.

Music is my shining light, my favorite thing in the world. T get me to stop doing it for one second would be difficult!

I had to resign myself, many years ago, that I’m not too articulate when it comes to explaining how I feel about things. But my music does it for me, it really does.

It was that famous joke: What’s the last thing the drummer said before he got kicked out of the band? ‚Hey, I wrote a song.‘

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

That thing about being an icon, the fifth Beatle, I just found it so freaky.

Without feelings of respect, what is there to distinguish men from beasts?

My music is a luxury.

I like being able to be on the inside of music, rather than on the outside listening to it.

Rhythm is something you either have or don’t have, but when you have it, you have it all over.

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.

I have a very eclectic iPod. So I’ve got my cardio people – so it’s anything from Beyonce to some Jay-Z to Janelle Monae, her song ‚Tightrope,‘ that’s a good cardio song. And then I’ve got Sting. I’ve got Mary J. Blige. I’ve got The Beatles. I’ve got Michael Jackson. I try to pick the songs that I personally love.

In case you’re wondering whether I lip synch, the answer is no… people think so because I sound so good.

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.

There’s poetry in being the band that can sell out Wembley but also makes a record in a garage. I don’t like doing what people expect me to do.

Five or six songs leaked from the original version of ‚Encore.‘ So I had to go in and make new songs to replace them.

Music is a really great creative tool for me, for different roles.

Most rock journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, for people who can’t read.

It didn’t even occur to me that I’m the last person in the world who should play salsa or Brazilian music.

When I was in high school, there were these British blues-rock-type bands with really good guitar players that would jam on one song for half an hour. And as much as I was amazed by some of those guitar players, seeing them prompted me to make a note that that’s not something I could do.

I don’t want to make niche-oriented music.

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.

I’m not Russell Crowe. I’m not going to do a period piece.

I booked my first studio at like 12 or 13. Somewhere in that season of my life, singing along with the radio became me wanting to be on radio, you know.

I love making new friends and I respect people for a lot of different reasons.

My company survives because I’ve learned to respect the ideas of people younger than me and recognize when my wisdom is obsolete.

Some people are making music just for numbers and views.

I really like Lady GaGa and everything she is for her fans.

To be honest, I never really considered myself to be too much of an actress. So, whenever I get the chance to do music, I’m always, like, just in it. It’s like, ‚Oh my God, I finally get to do this. I’m so happy.‘

I can dance to just about anything.

A flippant, frivolous man may ridicule others, may controvert them, scorn them; but he who has any respect for himself seems to have renounced the right of thinking meanly of others.

When you’re singing you can hear the echo of people in the audience singing every single word with you, and that was that big dream that I had for myself. It’s happening.

I belong to a gospel choir. They know I am an atheist but they are very tolerant.

I do like Burial; he’s so curiously clumsy, you can’t help but be moved. It’s so un-Hollywood, and the rhythms are so un-danceable.

For me, ‚risky‘ is revealing what really happened in my life through music. Risky is writing confessional songs and telling the true story about a person with enough details so everyone knows who that person is.

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 do seem to like to combine the dramatic emotional warmth of strings with the grooves and body business of drums and bass.

If you play an instrument, it makes you a better singer. The more you play, the better you sing, the more you sing, the better you play.

I hate victims who respect their executioners.

I love making music. That’s what I love to do. So I don’t feel like there’s any need to take a break unless I want to.

A song has to take on character, shape, body and influence people to an extent that they use it for their own devices. It must affect them not just as a song, but as a lifestyle.

The colored folks been singing it and playing it just like I’m doin‘ now, man, for more years than I know. I got it from them.

As a songwriter, you respect and appreciate the writings of other people, and I often get asked, are there songs out there I wish I’d written? Yes. There’s many of them!