I want my fans to love themselves. It’s almost like I want to hypnotize them so when they hear my music they love themselves instantly.

My fans love me for me, my beats, my rhymes.

Five or six songs leaked from the original version of ‚Encore.‘ So I had to go in and make new songs to replace them.

I listen to music all day every day. I can’t not listen to music. It’s kind of scary how much I listen to music, but it’s what I love, and it’s all I care about, so I’m good with it.

Sisters, do you realize the breadth and scope of your influence when you speak those things that come to your heart and mind as directed by the Spirit?

I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.

It’s rare for anyone to value the opinions of a teenage girl.

I really love the culture of hip-hop.

Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.

God doesn’t love me any more or less because I had some work done on my face.

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.

Sexism is part of every industry and must be addressed. But I try not to focus on the negative but the positive side of what we can bring.

I can operate in half-a-song format.

I was a strange, loud little kid who could sit at the piano and kill a Beethoven piece.

I’m just writing, writing, writing. I keep these tablets on me until I’m inspired to go back in and make the music. I never take a break from my pen, because I pride myself on that.

What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support?

Writing music is just like writing a book.

You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.

The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mode but the true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives the passion that she shows. The beauty of a woman grows with the passing years.

What I’ve discovered is that in art, as in music, there’s a lot of truth-and then there’s a lie. The artist is essentially creating his work to make this lie a truth, but he slides it in amongst all the others. The tiny little lie is the moment I live for, my moment. It’s the moment that the audience falls in love.

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.

I can write a song in about an hour if it’s a simple country song.

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.

I do probably 60 concerts a year in the States. And I go out to clubs in the week. I’m doing new stuff all the time.

I have never given adoration to any body except myself.

Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‚I’m possible‘!

I’ve heard there are troubles of more than one kind; some come from ahead, and some come from behind. But I’ve brought a big bat. I’m all ready, you see; now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!

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

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

On every front there are clear answers out there that can make this country stronger, but we’re going to break through the fear and the frustration people are feeling. Our job is to make sure that even as we make progress, that we are also giving people a sense of hope and vision for the future.

No, I can’t do rap music!

I always had music growing up, but music was also like a journal. It was like my personal diary or personal journal. A lot of the things I couldn’t express to an individual, I would express them in my music.

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

I don’t know if it’s changing already with ‚Joanne,‘ but my intention is to bring people together that don’t know each other and that would maybe feel awkward, but somehow be brought together by the music. That’s what I wanted to do. Because that is pure and authentic to my family history and what I stand for.

Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs.

If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.

My mami and papi love my music. They’re always listening to the radio waiting for one of my songs to come on. And when it does, they turn up the volume – and turn it back down when it’s over.

It is our duty as men and women to proceed as though the limits of our abilities do not exist.

Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.

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.

Most of us have far more courage than we ever dreamed we possessed.

When I joined Nirvana, I was the fifth or sixth drummer – I don’t know if they’d ever had a drummer they were totally happy with. And they were strangers. There was never much of a deeper connection outside of the music.

Carry the battle to them. Don’t let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive and don’t ever apologize for anything.

The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.

‚Two Voices,‘ from my album with Peter Schwalm, is an intact dream-poem. I awoke one night with an image of a piece of paper and all the words of the poem written on it, so I just blundered down to the kitchen table and ‚copied it out.‘

Wagner manages to convey emotion with music better than anyone, before or since.

Agency is a divine gift to you. You are free to choose what you will be and what you will do.

Rap was more of a release for me, a journal.

The wicked leader is he who the people despise. The good leader is he who the people revere. The great leader is he who the people say, ‚We did it ourselves.‘

As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.

I never sell a book. I sell myself. And the way to sell yourself is to be an instrument of love.

Most of those melodies are me trying to find out what notes fit, and then hitting ones that don’t fit in a very interesting way.

I always felt like there was a certain standard of music that I had to do from the beginning, even when I didn’t have the recognition that I have now.

I always use Michael as, first and foremost, a vocal inspiration, and ‚Off the Wall‘ was definitely the one that made me feel like I could sing.

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.

When you realize who you live for, and who’s important to please, a lot of people will actually start living. I am never going to get caught up in that. I’m gonna look back on my life and say that I enjoyed it – and I lived it for me.

It’s not essential for me to have a big debut week; it’s not essential for me to have big radio records.

A gender line… helps to keep women not on a pedestal, but in a cage.

I do believe in self-help.

When I got to New York City when I was 18, I started playing in clubs in Brooklyn – I have good friends and devoted fans on the underground scene, but we were playing for each other at that point – and that was it.

Basically, I live to do gigs.