When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily I should have been in that band – or at least in a Pixies cover band.

For the chorus of ‚Secrets,‘ we used The Romantics‘ ‚Talking in Your Sleep‘ and ‚Pale Shelter‘ by Tears for Fears. It’s like hip-hop: just grab it.

My heart, which is so full to overflowing, has often been solaced and refreshed by music when sick and weary.

My mother had a saying: ‚Kamala, you may be the first to do many things, but make sure you’re not the last.‘

Bill Gates has always been a mentor and inspiration for me even before I knew him. Just growing up, I admired how Microsoft was mission-focused.

Mariah and Whitney Houston were my goddesses growing up.

A ‚scream‘ is always just that – a noise and not music.

Teachers can change lives with just the right mix of chalk and challenges.

You listen to the radio and all the songs sound the same, from 8 in the morning to 12.

I’ve never wanted to use my age as a gimmick, as something that would get me ahead of other people. I’ve wanted the music to do that.

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

Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.

This thing that I do with caring about the message in my music, it’s not separate from my work as a commercial artist; they’re totally one and the same. I’m always going to be thinking about what my voice means.

I’ve got my Grammys on top of my piano and I look at them when I play.

The whole slacker generation totally didn’t apply to us musically.

Man, I’m the No. 1 living and breathing rock star. I am Axl Rose; I am Jim Morrison; I am Jimi Hendrix.

I think that, whatever happens, I’m just happy I’ve written those songs and I’ve made an album. That’s really big for me, and I’m proud of that.

In memory everything seems to happen to music.

Innovation can only occur where you can breathe free.

I believe the destiny of your generation – and your nation – is a rendezvous with excellence.

Music can change the world because it can change people.

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.

My career as Nipsey Hussle is based on my life as Ermias Asghedom.

Everywhere I go I find that people… both leaders and individuals… are asking one basic question, ‚Is there any hope for the future?‘ My answer is the same, ‚Yes, through Jesus Christ.‘

In cricket, my superhero is Sachin Tendulkar. He has always been my hero and will continue to remain so. Apart from him and outside cricket, my mother has remained my inspiration. Whatever difficult time I had faced, she was always there for me. She has given me all the strength. She maintained her composure and supported me in tough times.

Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken.

Why do I like to write short stories? Well, I certainly didn’t intend to. I was going to write a novel. And still! I still come up with ideas for novels. And I even start novels. But something happens to them. They break up. I look at what I really want to do with the material, and it never turns out to be a novel.

I was 14, and I fell in love with Pink Floyd.

The most miraculous process is watching a song go from a tiny idea in the middle of the night to something that 55,000 people are singing back to you.

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.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

I don’t have time to stand around and listen to an 11-minute song.

I listen to my old records and I think, ‚How did I ever get on the radio?‘

If one plays good music, people don’t listen and if one plays bad music people don’t talk.

I write my own songs. I made my own videos. I pick my producers. Nothing goes out without my permission. It’s all authentic.

Leaders must invoke an alchemy of great vision.

Water is the driving force of all nature.

Love is easy, and I love writing. You can’t resist love. You get an idea, someone says something, and you’re in love.

While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future.

You listen to Charlie Parker or John Coltrane before they found their voice, they sounded different. And when you listen to them after they found their voice on their instruments, they sound more confident and in control. Artists have that, too.

If music be the food of love, play on.

‚Evil men have no songs.‘ How is it that the Russians have songs?

I like the idea of a kind of eternal music, but I didn’t want it to be eternally repetitive, either. I wanted it to be eternally changing. So I developed two ideas in that way. ‚Discreet Music‘ was like that, and ‚Music for Airports.‘ What you hear on the recordings is a little part of one of those processes working itself out.

Love… it surrounds every being and extends slowly to embrace all that shall be.

Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.

When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain.

Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.

The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister is the suggestion of an occult relation.

Instruments sound interesting, not because of their sound, but because of the relationship a player has with them. Instrumentalists build a rapport with their instruments, which is what you like and respond to.

In my songs, I’m not saying something that’s never been said before. The have lyrics aren’t going to blow people away. It’s the emotion and the melody that drive it home.

Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.

I’d love it if everyone knew one Foo Fighters song.

I could sing you a thousand and one doo-wop songs. I love the simplicity in that music. It’s not super-poetic, it’s just from the heart.

I became interested in folk music because I had to make it somehow.

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

It was always a plan that we were going to have a retail side with what were doing musically, like an Apple store or Nike Town. I wanted something where you can come get everything – ‚Marathon‘ or ‚All Money‘ or ‚Crenshaw‘ – and make it like an experience. Especially with what Crenshaw and Slauson meant to my story.

In music the passions enjoy themselves.

Perhaps when music has been shouting for so long, a quieter voice seems attractive.

It confuses me and disappoints me when somebody says, ‚What does he do? What does he do?‘ My records are some of the biggest anthems ever. What do you think, they magically just appear? Obama walked out to my record.

I want you to feel happy and enjoy the theatre of my life the way that I do. No matter what happens with my music and wherever I go – that heart of that glamorous girl in New York will never be gone.

I was probably 7 years old when I started playing the guitar and writing some serious songs.