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 only frustrating thing about jail is that I can’t make music.

Confidence, as a teenager? Because I knew what I loved. I loved to read; I loved to listen to music; and I loved cats. Those three things. So, even though I was an only kid, I could be happy because I knew what I loved.

Unbeing dead isn’t being alive.

I used to really love Fiend, but he stopped. He just stopped. Every time he had a project, every project – ‚There’s One In Every Family,‘ ‚Street Life‘ – I had to have them. And he just stopped. And that was disappointing, ‚cause that was my favorite rapper at one time.

We grow older, but we do not change. We become more sophisticated, but at bottom we continue to resemble our young selves, eager to listen to the next story and the next, and the next.

My favorite record label of all time is Motown. That era of music was my favorite.

A song has to take on character, shape, body and influence people to an extent that they use it for their own devices. It must affect them not just as a song, but as a lifestyle.

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.

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

‚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.‘

Punk was defined by an attitude rather than a musical style.

The sound and music are 50% of the entertainment in a movie.

I’ve definitely seen bands before they made money kind of change their thing on the next tour, and I prefer it when it’s a little more raw.

Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.

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

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

Memory… is the diary that we all carry about with us.

Speaking purely from a musical standpoint, I think I am a great performer.

I don’t have time to stand around and listen to an 11-minute song.

Satisfaction consists in freedom from pain, which is the positive element of life.

We might as well die as to go on living like this.

I argue thee that love is life. And life hath immortality.

I found music to be the therapy of choice. I guess it is for a lot of people.

Nowadays, manners are easy and life is hard.

Life is wasted on the living.

Regarding life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is worthless.

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

Life is the fire that burns and the sun that gives light. Life is the wind and the rain and the thunder in the sky. Life is matter and is earth, what is and what is not, and what beyond is in Eternity.

Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.

One day it will be over, and I don’t care.

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

I like to combine the dramatic emotional warmth of strings with the grooves and body business of drums and bass.

Because of your smile, you make life more beautiful.

Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.

Years ago, when I first started being a big star, I had fans that were fanatical. It was when ‚Jolene‘ was a big hit.

If you hear Anarchy in the UK today your hair stands on end. It gives you the shivers.

One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.

I never expected anyone to take care of me, but in my wildest dreams and juvenile yearnings, I wanted the house with the picket fence from June Allyson movies. I knew that was yearning like one yearns to fly.

Isn’t it funny how babies laugh a lot? I read a toddler, a young child laughs 300 times a day. The average adult laughs, like, four times a day. God put it in them. He put the laugh in us, but I think sometimes we let life get us down, you know, have bad breaks, and we lose our breaks.

This is the truth: as from a fire aflame thousands of sparks come forth, even so from the Creator an infinity of beings have life and to him return again.

Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.

To me, if life boils down to one thing, it’s movement. To live is to keep moving.

What makes life dreary is the want of a motive.

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.

Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.

I’m not interested in possible complexities. I regard song structure as a graph paper.

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.

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.

People haven’t always been there for me, but music always has.

What the devil is the point of surviving, going on living, when it’s a drag? But you see, that’s what people do.

There’s poetry in being the band that can sell out Wembley but also makes a record in a garage. I don’t like doing what people expect me to do.

Civilisations have been destroyed many times, and this civilisation is no different. It can be destroyed. We can think of time in terms of millions of years and life will resume little by little. The cosmos operates for us very urgently, but geological time is different.

Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.

The chief condition on which, life, health and vigor depend on, is action. It is by action that an organism develops its faculties, increases its energy, and attains the fulfillment of its destiny.

Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now – always.

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 love Chris Brown. He’s a superstar. He’s one of the best singers out there.

We live in a bewildering world.

When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways – either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find our inner strength. Thanks to the teachings of Buddha, I have been able to take this second way.

Our life is what our thoughts make it.