You can have the platinum album. But, you know, when you still feel like you haven’t quite found your place in the world, it kind of gives a crazy offset.

On a good night, I get underwear, bras, and hotel-room keys thrown onstage… You start to think that you’re Tom Jones.

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.

I used to stutter really badly. Everybody thinks it’s funny. And it’s not funny. It’s not.

I don’t even listen to rap. My apartment is too nice to listen to rap in.

To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.

All Montreal bands have around nine members, I believe.

If we live a self-directed, self-motivated, self-centered life, always needing to get our own way, then we’re going to be miserable. In fact, many times we believe it’s our problems that are making us unhappy when, in reality, it’s because we’re focused on ourselves!

I love money because I’ve earned it. I won sixty G’s with my first knockout – and the week before, I was collecting social welfare.

He who knows himself is enlightened.

By indignities men come to dignities.

I don’t have any regrets. I made all my own decisions.

To me, my house is always recreating what I lost in youth.

Growing up, my grandmother did not want worldly music in the house. Then when I went out to California, I started listening to Spanish music, mostly Mexican music. But were I in Egypt, I would listen to the music of the people, or if I was in Italy, I’d listen to Italian music.

Many people, especially young people, would like to be more independent and on their own. But it is very difficult and they suffer from feelings of isolation. I think that is one reason why young readers support my work.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

My nails are my rhythm section when I’m writing a song all alone. Some day, I may cut an album, just me and my nails.

Students achieving Oneness will move on to Twoness.

I’m not happy all the time, and I wouldn’t want to be because that would make me a shallow person. But I do try to find the good in everybody.

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.

To do all that one is able to do, is to be a man; to do all that one would like to do, is to be a god.

The most challenging project I’ve ever done, I think, is every single thing I’ve ever tried to do. It’s never easy.

I enjoy singing my songs in front of people. I enjoy being involved in making the artwork for albums and stupid stuff like that.

Satan wants us to constantly focus on everything that is wrong with us and look at how far we still have to go. But God desires for us to rejoice in how far we have already come.

I’m very proud to be black, but black is not all I am. That’s my cultural historical background, my genetic makeup, but it’s not all of who I am nor is it the basis from which I answer every question.

We boil at different degrees.

Invest three percent of your income in yourself (self-development) in order to guarantee your future.

I think the healthy way to live is to make friends with the beast inside oneself, and that means not the beast but the shadow. The dark side of one’s nature. Have fun with it and you know, is to accept everything about ourselves.

When I was growing up, there were no women in orchestras. Auditioners thought they could tell the difference between a woman playing and a man. Some intelligent person devised a simple solution: Drop a curtain between the auditioners and the people trying out. And, lo and behold, women began to get jobs in symphony orchestras.

Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.

I feel like the reason people feel like they know me is because I’m giving you myself in the music. There’s where the connection comes from; you can’t Twitter that.

Man is an idea, and a precious small idea once he turns his back on love.

Making music is like shopping for me. Every song is like a new pair of shoes.

Latin music is universal.

I’m reflective only in the sense that I learn to move forward. I reflect with a purpose.

If I am no longer disturbed myself, I will deal less with disturbed people, but I don’t regret having concerned myself with them because I think most of us are disturbed.

Transforming yourself into a deep listener will not only prove more amusing as you open your mind to their mind, but you will gain the most invaluable lessons about human psychology.

You don’t need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are!

The best measure of a man’s honesty isn’t his income tax return. It’s the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.

Because my dad abused me, I was determined to never let a man tell me what to do. God clearly showed me that I needed to be a submissive wife if I wanted to be effective in ministry. The truth is, if we don’t learn to submit to authority, we won’t ever learn to submit to God.

I’m an iPod person.

I’m not lesbian; I’m not bisexual; I’m not straight. I’m just curious.

I used to let other people’s struggles affect my happiness. If they weren’t happy, there was no way I was going to be happy. The opposite was also true: If I wasn’t happy, I didn’t want anyone around me to be happy.

I never went to rock concerts when I was a kid. I didn’t see any rock & roll bands.

Every album, I make big records. I’m going to always make an anthem. That’s what I do.

You might win some, you might lose some. But you go in, you challenge yourself, you become a better man, a better individual, a better fighter.

I used to feel unsafe right in the moment of an accomplishment – I felt the ground fall from under my feet because this could be the end. And even now, while everyone is celebrating, I’m on to the next thing. I don’t want to get lost in this big cushion of success.

The truth is, I had always wanted to be a comedian, but I really didn’t have that kind of personality, and it’s a terrifying thing to say.

Nothing on ‚Relapse‘ and very little on ‚Recovery‘ was produced by me.

I’ve always felt that if I examine myself too much, I’ll find out what I know and don’t know, and I’ll burst the bubble. I’ve gotten so lucky relying on my animal instincts, I’d rather keep a little bit of the animal alive.

How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend them.

I put Catholic guilt to work pretty good for a rich rock star.

I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity.

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot – it’s all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.

Whenever I make music, it reflects where I’m at mentally.

You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.

How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.

At 13 years old, I realized I could start my own band. I could write my own song, I could record my own record. I could start my own label. I could release my own record. I could book my own shows. I could write and publish my own fanzine. I could silk-screen my own T-shirt. I could do this all myself.

Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it; courage which arises from a sense of duty acts; in a uniform manner.

True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.