Super-envious of the fact that Daft Punk can wear robot helmets and be one of the most famous bands in the world, while also understanding that will never be my situation.

Being shoved into the top-40 scene was an unusual experience. It was great I’d become accessible to a huge audience but not terribly fulfilling.

Dreaming about being an actress, is more exciting then being one.

When I was 8 years old, I saw ‚Raiders of the Lost Ark‘ in Charlotte, North Carolina. I walked out of there and was so inspired. I loved the movie, and I knew I wanted to be that guy.

I have taken taking my music to labels for years, and everyone just thought it was creepy. They thought the images with the music were weird and verging on psychotic.

I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

If you ask people what they’ve always wanted to do, most people haven’t done it. That breaks my heart.

I know a lot of people say they always believed they could get into F1, but I didn’t quite believe that, certainly not when I was 7 and maybe not until I was 14. It was always so far away.

If you only believe that you’re an artist when you have a big advance in your pocket and a single coming out, I would say that’s quite soulless. You have to have a sense of your own greatness and your own ability from a very deep place inside you. I am the one with the litmus test in my hands of what people need to hear next.

I love dresses, and I’ve definitely thought about designing them someday. I just want to make sure that I wait until the time is perfect and I can do it right.

The fame thing is interesting because I never wanted to be famous, and I never dreamt I would be famous.

I always wanted to know, and I always used to daydream, about what it would be like to stand on a really big stage and sing songs for a lot of people, songs that I had written… Daydreaming was kind of my No. 1 thing when I was little, because I didn’t have much of a social life going on.

I always dreamt of holding the bat and winning games for India. That was my inspiration to take up cricket.

I still have my first paycheck. It was just, I think, a dollar or two that I got when I started as a songwriter with BMI, and I had some songs there that I had through the company, and in the mail I got this big old check for, like, a dollar and a half or something. Somebody had recorded one of my songs.

I’d say it’s been my biggest problem all my life… it’s money. It takes a lot of money to make these dreams come true.

I’ve never thought about any kind of prejudice about women in country music because I never felt like it affected me. I was fortunate enough to come about in a time when I didn’t feel that kind of energy at all, and it was always my theory that if you want to play in the same ballgame as the boys, you’ve got to work as hard as them.

To go indie is a thing. But to put an album in the stores, you need a distribution label.

I really hope someday in Hollywood, some producer or director will hire me only to do drama.

I think Kenny Chesney or Garth Brooks would be the coolest duet partners. I look up to them so much for their work ethics.

Streaming is a really big market for me. We’ve been doing great in the streaming market, so it’s not something I want to alienate at all. Streaming counts now. They’re treating artists the way we deserve to be treated.

I’ve never written a song in my life. It’s all a big hoax.

Music is changing so quickly, and the landscape of the music industry itself is changing so quickly, that everything new, like Spotify, all feels to me a bit like a grand experiment.

I think we’re about ready for a new feeling to enter music. I think that will come from the Arabic world.

In 2013, the week before I dropped ‚Crenshaw,‘ ‚Complex‘ wrote an article that said that Nipsey Hussle is one of the top 25 underperforming artists. I was so offended that I responded with my own opinion about these journalists – their point of view is not validated in our culture.

Apple has given me a platform to spread music. They’re giving us Latinos a chance to shine.

The average Hollywood film star’s ambition is to be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, married to an Englishman and have a French boyfriend.

I don’t know anything about music. In my line you don’t have to.

At one point, I didn’t care. Now I want as many people to hear my music as possible.

I am a lucky man. I have had a dream and it has come true, and that is not a thing that happens often to men.

The stores and the things like that, the business side of things came out at the point when, I’d say probably in the early ’70s, it looked like the year of the singer-songwriter was over, ‚cause music changed in our time and the spotlight was out.

Every artist wants something different out the game.

The closest I ever came to getting married was just before I started singing. In fact, my first record saved my neck.

And God help Bruce Springsteen when they decide he’s no longer God… They’ll turn on him, and I hope he survives it.

There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.

I’m dying to be a great dad one day, whenever that day comes.

I booked my first studio at like 12 or 13. Somewhere in that season of my life, singing along with the radio became me wanting to be on radio, you know.

Man is not the sum of what he has already, but rather the sum of what he does not yet have, of what he could have.

When I was nine years old, living on the south side of Chicago, my father was a minister and my mother used to scrub floors. I had seven brothers and four sisters. I told my mama, ‚One of these days I’m going to be big and strong and buy you a beautiful house.‘ That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do with my life, is to take care of my mother.

Do all you can to make your dreams come true.

You don’t hear no artists from Compton showing vulnerability.

I was 18 years old, and it was a dream come true for me to work out and eat great food for free. What else do you want in life? People think that is what it is like to be in a SEAL team, but it is less than a fraction of your career as a real SEAL.

Some day I shall be President.

I think generally playing live is a crap idea. So much of stage work is the presentation of personality, and I’ve never been interested in that.

I have always felt it is my destiny to build a machine that would allow man to fly.

When I think over what I have said, I envy dumb people.

I seen a lot of artists be hot for a minute, and then that’s it, and somebody else come in.

Gold is a treasure, and he who possesses it does all he wishes to in this world, and succeeds in helping souls into paradise.

I never dreamed of being a pop star when I was a child.

I think songwriting is the ultimate form of being able to make anything that happens in your life productive.

When you’re a pop star, it’s a little conservative; you always have to stay in a box. You have fans that are five and fans that are 65; there are so many people wanting so many things.

I love it when people say things to me in public and want to meet me, because I want to meet them! Early on, my manager told me, ‚If you want to sell 500,000 records, then go out there and meet 500,000 people.‘

Working with J Balvin has undoubtedly been an unparalleled experience.

I always wanted to be a Vine star. I wasn’t, thank God.

I wanted to be in a punk band before I had even heard any punk music.

Rock music is niche.

Reggaeton is something else – it is part of pop culture. It is something very big that I don’t believe will ever die.

You just want something else that someone else has, but that doesn’t mean what you have isn’t beautiful, because people always want what you have, and you always want what they have – no one is ever 100 per cent like, ‚Yes, I’m the bomb dot com – from head to toe!‘

A development deal is where they’re giving you recording time and money to record, but not promising that they’ll put an album out.

Sometimes I wish I had taken the Bob Dylan route and sang songs where my voice would not go out on me every night, so I could have a career if I wanted.

As a young kid, I really wanted to be rich.

I’ve noticed that when I am selling a lot of records, certain things become easier. I’m not talking about getting a table in a restaurant.