What inspires me about rap is that it’s written in an almost poetic way. I just think it’s so cool.

When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity.

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.

I felt I really wanted to back off from music completely and just work within the visual arts in some way. I started painting quite passionately at that time.

I never could get over the fact that The Pixies formed, worked and separated without America taking them to its heart or even recognizing their existence for the most part.

I really am a fan of Ye’s music.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

I take inspiration from everyone and everything. I’m inspired by current champions, former champions, true competitors, people dedicated to their dream, hard workers, dreamers, believers, achievers.

I don’t give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.

At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.

I definitely think, generally, rap is misogynistic.

At 57, to have a No. 1 album, I wasn’t expecting it.

Leaders must invoke an alchemy of great vision.

There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere.

Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.

Yes, the Bible should be taught in our schools because it is necessary to understand the Bible if we are to truly understand our own culture and how it came to be. The Bible has influenced every part of western culture from our art, music, and history, to our sense of fairness, charity, and business.

From the time that ‚Nevermind‘ came out in September of 1991 to the time that Nirvana was over, it was really just a few years, and a lot happened in those few years.

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 never been to New Zealand before. But one of my role models, Xena, the warrior princess, comes from there.

Music is everybody’s possession. It’s only publishers who think that people own it.

The good thing about having chemistry is, when you get to the improv section of a scene, you’ve got somebody to feed off. It can go on and on and on, and the sky’s the limit.

There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.

Open Graph is a language for structuring content and sharing that goes on in other apps, and we’re continuing to build it out longer term. But we found we need to build more specific experiences around categories like music or movies. Where we’ve taken the time to build those specific experiences, stuff has gone quite well.

God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us, on this side of the grave.

Japan’s very interesting. Some people think it copies things. I don’t think that anymore. I think what they do is reinvent things. They will get something that’s already been invented and study it until they thoroughly understand it. In some cases, they understand it better than the original inventor.

Passions are the gales of life.

When I heard ‚Jesus, Take the Wheel,‘ I was like, OK. Some people look at it as a song written for an American Idol, Carrie Underwood, who is wonderful. But when you’re a songwriter listening to a song, you hear something else. I heard that song, and wow.

Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning.

With a tree, all the growth takes place at the growing tips. Humanity is exactly the same. All the growth takes place in the growing tip: among that one percent of the population. It’s made up of pioneers, the beginners. That’s where the action is.

Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.

To hold a pen is to be at war.

You must capture and keep the heart of the original and supremely able man before his brain can do its best.

I think people inspire me the most. If I meet a person who is incredibly complex, and all of a sudden, I start thinking in rhymes, that person could be a muse.

We have art in order not to die of the truth.

Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall.

What makes all doctrines plain and clear? About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was proved true before, prove false again? Two hundred more.

People are used to music that justifies street culture but something that’s not touched on is why these kids act the way they act, live the way they live.

I hope my story inspires everyone out there to keep hustling and chasing their dreams.

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

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

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

Never, and I mean never, allow anyone else’s ideas of who you can or can’t become sully your dream or pollute your imagination. This is your territory, and a ‚Keep Out‘ sign is a great thing to erect at all entrances to your imagination.

The bird is powered by its own life and by its motivation.

If tomorrow I want to release a rock album or I want to release a bachata album, nobody can tell me anything – why can’t I?

Forces that you might think are utterly unrelated to creativity can have a big impact. Technology, obviously, but environment, too. Even financial structures can affect the actual content of a song. The making of music is profoundly affected by the market.

To what greater inspiration and counsel can we turn than to the imperishable truth to be found in this treasure house, the Bible?

If I get stuck, I look at a book that tells me how someone else did it. I turn the pages, and then I say, ‚Oh, I forgot that bit,‘ then close the book and carry on. Finally, after you’ve figured out how to do it, you read how they did it and find out how dumb your solution is and how much more clever and efficient theirs is!

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.

Personally, I think the best motto for an educational establishment is: ‚Or Would You Rather Be a Mule?‘

Nobody should come to the movies unless he believes in heroes.

I remember being in Japan when Destiny’s Child put out ‚Independent Women,‘ and women there were saying how proud they were to have their own jobs, their own independent thinking, their own goals. It made me feel so good, and I realized that one of my responsibilities was to inspire women in a deeper way.

I don’t know if I ever feel totally great about a record when I put it out. With every record that I put out, someone has literally got to come pry it from me because when I listen to my own music, I just hear flaws in it.

I want to make something that is breathtaking. Of course, you can’t make something that is always breathtaking, or you would never be able to breathe. You would collapse.

The strongest influences in my life and my work are always whomever I love. Whomever I love and am with most of the time, or whomever I remember most vividly. I think that’s true of everyone, don’t you?

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

Writing is such a strange, utterly mysterious process. First, there was nothing; then, suddenly, there was something. I don’t know where thoughts are born. Where the hell does it come from? I don’t know. I really don’t know.

The death of a beautiful woman, is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.

Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.

Mick Fleetwood was one of my first interviews. And if you’ve ever talked to that dude, he’s the sweetest guy in the world – he’s just a trip.

Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together.

My goal in music is to create nostalgic moments.