I wanted to be famous for my music and my talent, and I always wished I could cut it out when I left the stage.

Philosophy is the highest music.

Even though I was very shy, I found I could get onstage if I had a new identity.

Getting a great idea with song writing is a lot like love. You don’t know why this one is different, but it is. You don’t know why this one is better, but it is. It sticks in your head, and you can’t stop thinking about it.

I think music is something that can, and should, be used to get you into different things because eventually what goes up must come down – we’re not going to be the number one group in the world forever – so you have to have something else to fall back on.

I’d like to do a completely off-the-wall collaboration. I would like one of my songs to be the hook to a rap song. That would be so much fun!

The basis of our partnership strategy and our partnership approach: We build the social technology. They provide the music.

Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something.

If you pour your life into songs, you want them to be heard. It’s a desire to communicate. A deep desire to communicate inspires songwriting.

I try to really capitalize off of what other rappers really can’t do. There are opportunities that rappers I love simply can’t get, because… you know… I don’t have the tattoos; I have a different image.

In case you’re wondering whether I lip synch, the answer is no… people think so because I sound so good.

Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

For other nations, utopia is a blessed past never to be recovered; for Americans it is just beyond the horizon.

In this day and age, when you can use a machine or computer to simulate or emulate what people can do together, it still can’t replace the magic of four people in a room playing.

I aspire my country eventually has a league where all players play 50 games.

Doing a show for three weeks is nothing like doing a show for seven seasons.

Funk, I don’t think I have anything to do with funk. I’ve never considered myself funky.

Let the path be open to talent.

With fame, you know, you can read about yourself, somebody else’s ideas about you, but what’s important is how you feel about yourself – for survival and living day to day with what comes up.

I was doing sold-out shows before I got radio play.

A good compromise, a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence; or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, ‚Huh. It works. It makes sense.‘

What inspires me about rap is that it’s written in an almost poetic way. I just think it’s so cool.

Fame is fickle, and I know it. It has its compensations but it also has its drawbacks, and I’ve experienced them both.

I have to admit I’ve found myself doing the same things that a lot of other rock stars do or are forced to do. Which is not being able to respond to mail, not being able to keep up on current music, and I’m pretty much locked away a lot. The outside world is pretty foreign to me.

Robert Fripp and I will be recording another LP very soon. It should be even more monotonous than the first one!

Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities.

The most talented do not always end up as celebrities, and those with less talent often do. Upsets are written into our history and occur around us every day.

Chicago gave me more music than any other city in America.

It’s about the stories. If I write 14 stories that I love, then the next step is to get the environment of music around it to best envelop the story, and all kinds of sonic goodness – sonic goodies.

I never intended for the Monster Ball to be a religious experience, it just became one.

The charm of fame is so great that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.

Open Graph is a language for structuring content and sharing that goes on in other apps, and we’re continuing to build it out longer term. But we found we need to build more specific experiences around categories like music or movies. Where we’ve taken the time to build those specific experiences, stuff has gone quite well.

Doing the box set is one of those things where you get to rewrite your own history to some extent. We could take out some of the songs that we felt weren’t as strong as some of the others, so you look better.

I learned how important it is to entertain people and give them a reason to come and watch you play.

I’ve always strived to be successful, not famous.

‚In Utero‘ was the first time I’d made an album that reached into the dark side. I remember the conflict and the uncertainty. I remember all those things when I hear ‚Pennyroyal Tea.‘

‚Evil men have no songs.‘ How is it that the Russians have songs?

Music is really driving my whole life.

In memory everything seems to happen to music.

I’ve been talked about by a lot better people than the general public.

I would drive to gigs in my tiny little Fiat. I would shoot up and down the M1 to play at various places.

You can’t really imagine music without technology.

I don’t want to make niche-oriented music.

Mick Fleetwood was one of my first interviews. And if you’ve ever talked to that dude, he’s the sweetest guy in the world – he’s just a trip.

I really love the culture of hip-hop.

With drive and a bit of talent, you can move mountains. I know. I’ve done it.

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.

I love making music. That’s what I love to do. So I don’t feel like there’s any need to take a break unless I want to.

I really started writing music to challenge myself, to see what I could write.

Some people focus more on sonics. Some people focus more on story. I focus on both sonics and story.

If it’s illegal to rock and roll, throw my ass in jail!

Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout.

Most rock journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, for people who can’t read.

Aside from singing, I’m also a dancer. I’ve been dancing since I was 8.

And I saw the sax line-up that he had behind him and I thought, I’m going to learn the saxophone. When I grow up, I’m going to play in his band. So I sort of persuaded my dad to get me a kind of a plastic saxophone on the hire purchase plan.

I just try to write songs that people are going to have a dialogue about.

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.

I just was never into performing. It’s just hard work. It’s hard work.

We cannot wish for that we know not.

I went through all the musicians in my life who I admire as bright, intelligent, virtuosic players.

People assume that the meaning of a song is vested in the lyrics. To me, that has never been the case. There are very few songs that I can think of where I remember the words.