I don’t think I’d ever apologise for music I make, no.

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.

I never desired to please the rabble. What pleased them, I did not learn; and what I knew was far removed from their understanding.

My father moved to Hawaii from Brooklyn and my mother came there as a child from the Philippines. They met at a show where my dad was playing percussion. My mom was a hula dancer.

As much as I love the Western genre, I figured if I kept doing those, I’d eventually run out of steam on that, and that would’ve been the end of it.

I do some kind of work, whether writing or painting or recording, on a daily basis. And it’s so essential that when I’m involved in the actual process, my so-called ‚real life‘ becomes almost incidental, which becomes worrying.

Technique is really personality. That is the reason why the artist cannot teach it, why the pupil cannot learn it, and why the aesthetic critic can understand it.

Mickey Mouse popped out of my mind onto a drawing pad 20 years ago on a train ride from Manhattan to Hollywood at a time when business fortunes of my brother Roy and myself were at lowest ebb and disaster seemed right around the corner.

Europe is so well gardened that it resembles a work of art, a scientific theory, a neat metaphysical system. Man has re-created Europe in his own image.

Dropkick Murphys get me going, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana… plus, all the regular hip-hop stuff.

Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.

Doing graphic novels is cool! It’s fun! You get to write something, and then see it visually page by page, panel by panel, working with the artist, you get to see it fleshed out.

Occasionally, I hanker for the time when I sold more records, but I don’t sit and drool about it. When I do look at early footage of Talking Heads, I realise I was just a wreck.

I like being able to be on the inside of music, rather than on the outside listening to it.

Before I do anything, I think, well what hasn’t been seen. Sometimes, that turns out to be something ghastly and not fit for society. And sometimes that inspiration becomes something that’s really worthwhile.

We all sort of do want incentives for creative people to still exist at a certain level. You know, maybe rock stars shouldn’t make as much; who knows? But you want as much creativity to take place in the future as took place in the past.

Science does not know its debt to imagination.

‚Kiss Land‘ wasn’t about what people wanted to hear on the radio. It was the state of mind I was in – introverted, like David Cronenberg’s ‚Naked Lunch.‘ You didn’t know if you were hearing a chorus or a verse. It was just my thoughts.

I was very camera shy. People like hot girls, so I put my music to hot girls and it just became a trend. The whole ‚enigmatic artist‘ thing, I just ran with it. No one could find pictures of me.

All Montreal bands have around nine members, I believe.

See that the imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man.

I’m interested in Jackson Pollock’s kind of art, where art is beautiful, but it’s nothing, and yet it’s incredible.

I never played with anything like toys.

All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.

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

For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication.

And later, if I ever felt that I was getting swept away by the craziness of being in a band, well, I’d go back to Virginia.

A musician should only sound like what they do, and no two musicians sound the same. It’s an individual-feel thing, you know?

Meditation has been a loyal friend to me. It has helped me write my books.

I’m the same kid who used to hop the trains with headphones and just go to downtown Manhattan, walk around and listen to music or walk through the city. The fame restricts that. It’s a small complaint in comparison to the benefits I get from it, but the restrictive part is what I don’t like – and the fact that it’s not reversible.

I love movement. I love moshing.

I’ve always felt music is the only way to give an instantaneous moment the feel of slow motion. To romanticise it and glorify it and give it a soundtrack and a rhythm.

Most poets are young simply because they have not been caught up. Show me an old poet, and I’ll show you, more often than not, either a madman or a master… it’s when you begin to lie to yourself in a poem in order simply to make a poem that you fail. That is why I do not rework poems.

Instead of stubbornly attempting to use surrealism for purposes of subversion, it is necessary to try to make of surrealism something as solid, complete and classic as the works of museums.

Pretty much my whole life, I’ve been a performer and have loved singing and writing songs in my room for my own ears.

I like to be creative.

I cannot with any real integrity perform songs I’ve done for 25 years. I don’t need the money. What I need is to feel that I am not letting myself down as an artist and that I still have something to contribute.

I just really want to get music out and tour and go places I’ve never been, and just do more videos. I love photography and videography, and so I really want to direct videos when I can.

The book is not really the container for the book. The book itself is the narrative. It’s the thing that people create.

They say you can rap about anything except for Jesus, that means guns, sex, lies, video tapes, but if I talk about God my record won’t get played Huh?

My lyrics are generated by various peculiar processes. Very random and similar to automatic writing.

Kanye West is my favorite artist.

I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.

This land is your land and this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway.

My life is not to be somebody else’s impact – you know what I mean?

No, I can’t do rap music!

There’s not some idea I’m going to create a work that’s going to change everybody’s consciousness.

Poetry comes from the highest happiness or the deepest sorrow.

A Khaled record is always the best.

People – especially white people – they want me to be a role model just because of the life I lead. The things I say in my songs, they expect it of me.

My mother is a singer, my sisters all sing, my uncles are incredible singers and guitar players, so it’s just kind of been like my habitat.

I grew up in a musical family; the majority of my growing up was done in Hawaii. It’s what we do. You sing, you dance, you play ukulele and you drink.

I am not happy, and the quest for happiness as a principal objective is not part of my world. Of course, ever since I can remember, I have done what I felt like doing.

Paintings have a life of their own that derives from the painter’s soul.

I am not influenced by the techniques or fashions of any other motion picture company.

Disneyland is a work of love. We didn’t go into Disneyland just with the idea of making money.

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

If an idea isn’t exciting, you shouldn’t do it.

There are certain sounds that I’ve found work well in nearly any context. Their function is not so much musical as spatial: they define the edges of the territory of the music.

A lot of people from my generation of music are so focused on playing things correctly or to perfection that they’re stuck in that safe place.

I have never used Auto-Tune in a live television performance, and I have never used Auto-Tune in any of my concerts. That is a promise.