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.

Cast away your sloth, your lethargy, your coldness, or whatever interferes with your chaste and pure love for Christ, your soul’s husband. Make Him the source, the center, and the circumference of all your soul’s range of delight.

No one can resist the idea of a crippled genius.

The ear is the avenue to the heart.

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

Where love is, there God is also.

Millions of people were inspired by the Apollo Program. I was five years old when I watched Apollo 11 unfold on television, and without any doubt it was a big contributor to my passions for science, engineering, and exploration.

When I start to write, I don’t have any plan at all. I just wait for the story to come.

Nurture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.

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

Nor shall derision prove powerful against those who listen to humanity or those who follow in the footsteps of divinity, for they shall live forever. Forever.

I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can’t be done.

I was a super-duper Tupac fan, and I realized later, when I became a huge Nas fan and a huge Eminem fan, I was drawn to the storytellers. They all told stories in different ways, but they were all like the best storytellers.

I’m not claiming divinity. I’ve never claimed purity of soul. I’ve never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can… But I still believe in peace, love and understanding.

People ask me where I got my singing style. I didn’t copy my style from anybody.

Wanting to feel good is synonymous with wanting to feel God.

Years ago, when I first started being a big star, I had fans that were fanatical. It was when ‚Jolene‘ was a big hit.

I grew up on the Beatles; I love Linkin Park and Green Day. I heard hip-hop for the first time at 11 and realized what I was missing.

One of the benefits of playing to small audiences in small clubs for a few years is that you’re allowed to fail.

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.

I used to – my earliest memory of waking up with a melody in my head was, you know, 8, 9, 10. I’ve always heard kind of melodies in my head.

My music definitely comes from a place of experience. Everything connects to a truth.

I don’t know what can be so dangerous about giving people hope. Causing people to have better relationships. I’m not leading them to some false God or something like that.

When I listen to the radio, I just hear so much music that doesn’t even sound like people. The vocals are all tuned, and the drums are all fake.

The songs are my lexicon. I believe the songs.

In art the best is good enough.

The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.

I love hugging people. I still hug everybody in my meet-and-greet lines.

You know, as a writer, I’m more of a listener than a writer, cuz if I hear something I will write it down.

One of the things you do when you make a piece of art is you try to make the world you’d rather be in.

Some people focus more on sonics. Some people focus more on story. I focus on both sonics and story, but music sometimes, just music itself, can turn into more of a maths problem. I guess everything in life is a math problem, but it can be more about an empirical route to getting the symmetry that you want, and this vibe, sonically.

Great geniuses have the shortest biographies.

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

People like music when they’re in love, but they don’t need it as much. You need music when you’re missing someone or you’re pining for someone or you’re forgetting someone or you’re trying to process what just happened.

If you dream the proper dreams, and share the myths with people, they will want to grow up to be like you.

If I could write directly on a typewriter or a computer, I would do it. But keyboards have always intimidated me. I’ve never been able to think clearly with my fingers in that position. A pen is a much more primitive instrument. You feel that the words are coming out of your body and then you dig the words into the page.

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

I can operate in half-a-song format.

Van Gogh never made a penny in his entire lifetime. He painted because it was his soul, his excitement. It was what aligned him with his Source of being. It’s the same with me and writing.

My experience with songwriting is usually so confessional, it’s so drawn from my own life and my own stories.

Every bad situation is a blues song waiting to happen.

It’s a privilege to serve the poor, to be servants of noble Africans, but I better belong in the rehearsal room or in the studio with my band. That’s where I want to be and I still wake up in the morning with melodies in my head.

I used to consider the listener. But now I’m in a space where, if I’m not inspired, I can’t really do the music. I can’t feel it.

There are some things you can’t share without ending up liking each other.

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.

All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.

I wish I could make music about politics. I feel like it’s such an art and a talent that I admire tremendously, but when I step into the studio, I step out of the real world, and it’s therapeutic.

Compton got such a legacy in hip-hop.

Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.

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.

If I’m inspired to make a certain kind of song, I’m going to make that kind of song, no matter if it’s what they know me as or think I am.

My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth.

I’m wallowing in the whole idea of just being a guy out there with a band, with songs. It’s a real enjoyment.

The game is changing with songs like ‚Earned It‘ as opposed to it changing me.

I liberate minds with my music. That’s more important than liberating a few people from apartheid or whatever.

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 feel that when you care about your music, taking risks is something you should do to keep things exciting.

One of the interesting things about having little musical knowledge is that you generate surprising results sometimes; you move to places you wouldn’t if you knew better.

Everybody has a purpose.

My music seems to have a bigger mission than I have, which is very soothing but also very strange because people see more in me than I see, which can be terrifying.

If you look deep enough you will see music; the heart of nature being everywhere music.