You can’t imagine parlor ballads drifting out of high-rise multi-towered buildings. That kind of music existed in a more timeless state of life.

The great moments of rock ‚n‘ roll were never off in some corner of the music world, in a self-constructed ghetto.

If a man loses his reverence for any part of life, he will lose his reverence for all of life.

My audience went, ‚Wait, why is she singing jazz? What’s going on?‘ And then they went, ‚Oh, because she can. Because she loves it.‘ And jazz, a music invented by the African-American community, is the greatest art form, I believe, to have ever come out of this country.

All my records and videos were groundbreaking.

This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it.

Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday.

I believe in singing to such an extent that, if I were asked to redesign the British educational system, I would start by insisting that group singing becomes a central part of the daily routine. I believe it builds character and, more than anything else, encourages a taste for cooperation with others.

The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.

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

The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.

One of my big fears is people saying my songs are all starting to sound the same.

There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.

As long as my music is real, it’s no limit to how many ears I can grab.

If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.

In a magazine, one can get – from cover to cover – 15 to 20 different ideas about life and how to live it.

It’s so sweet, I feel like my teeth are rotting when I listen to the radio.

Everybody is going to have their critics. It’s easy to get discouraged in life.

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

Man’s real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.

Your joy comes from how you think, the choices that we make in life.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

You have to be a bastard to make it, and that’s a fact. And the Beatles are the biggest bastards on earth.

You are going to let the fear of poverty govern you life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.

Bread without flesh is a good diet, as on many botanical excursions I have proved. Tea also may easily be ignored. Just bread and water and delightful toil is all I need – not unreasonably much, yet one ought to be trained and tempered to enjoy life in these brave wilds in full independence of any particular kind of nourishment.

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

The first thing which I can record concerning myself is, that I was born. These are wonderful words. This life, to which neither time nor eternity can bring diminution – this everlasting living soul, began. My mind loses itself in these depths.

Music can change the world because it can change people.

I get a thrill meeting kids who are into alternative music.

A sense of the universe, a sense of the all, the nostalgia which seizes us when confronted by nature, beauty, music – these seem to be an expectation and awareness of a Great Presence.

Mendacity is a system that we live in. Liquor is one way out an death’s the other.

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

I tried to give the world a bit of creativity, lyrics. And for me, I will always represent music from Puerto Rico, reggaeton, Latin music.

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.

Anything that encourages people to pick up an instrument and play, I’m fully behind.

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.

To a profound pessimist about life, being in danger is not depressing.

I just kept touring and touring until it became second nature to go onstage, perform, and sing.

When a team takes ownership of its problems, the problem gets solved. It is true on the battlefield, it is true in business, and it is true in life.

One is still what one is going to cease to be and already what one is going to become. One lives one’s death, one dies one’s life.

I’m just glad I was able to return to some of that innocence and beauty I had as a child when I started my own family, and my children brought me back some of that spirit.

The momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.

Who’s to say what’s a good voice and not a good voice?

Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.

I never listen to the radio unless I rent a car.

I’ve dreamed about doing music since I was three or four years old.

Even when I was a kid, everything I had was the best.

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

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.

Life is too short for long-term grudges.

Every generation always thinks it was better before, and I think people have been saying this for probably thousands of years.

Things ain’t what they used to be and never were.

Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.

Music is not math. It’s science. You keep mixing the stuff up until it blows up on you, or it becomes this incredible potion.

I desire no future that will break the ties with the past.

I can dance to just about anything.

People think, because we’re young, we aren’t complex, but that’s not true. We deal with life and love and broken hearts in the same way a woman a few years older might.

‚9 to 5,‘ that little song, that little story, just won’t ever end. Just like ‚I Will Always Love You,‘ it just keeps comin‘ back, popping up its head in one way or another.

The life so short, the craft so long to learn.

I definitely think, generally, rap is misogynistic.

Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life.