Everything Quotes

As a writer, as a creator, I'm giving you my experiences. But just take what I give you. You ain't got to pry beyond that.

I feel like I was writing as I was learning to talk. Writing was always a go-to form of communication. And I knew I could sing from being in tune with the radio.

My grandfather was smart and had a whole lot of pride. He didn't speak a terrible amount, but you could tell there was a ton on his mind - like a quiet acceptance of how life had turned out.

I never think about myself as an artist working in this time. I think about it in macro.

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. And writing Langston Hughes replica poems became me wanting to write like Stevie Wonder.

Whenever I think about movies, I always look at that art process as having the best of a lot of worlds. Because if you watch a great film, you have a musical element to it, not just on the scoring, but in the way that the shots are edited - that has music and rhythm and time.

As a lifestyle you always being the focal point is innately unhealthy.

The way I approach this thing, when I started to get my head screwed on straight and really trying to make something of myself as an artist, when I was 19 or 20, it became more about function for me. Like, what is this song doing to you? What is the function of this type of artform? What is it doing?

I'm in this business to be creative - I'll even diminish it and say to be a content provider.

I make pop culture.

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.

When I was growing up, there was nobody in my family - not even my mother - who I could look to and be like, 'I know you've never said anything homophobic.' So, you know, you worry about people in the business who you've heard talk that way. Some of my heroes coming up talk recklessly like that.

I enjoy singing my songs in front of people. I enjoy being involved in making the artwork for albums and stupid stuff like that.

I can operate in half-a-song format.

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

I've gotten used to being Frank Ocean.

It's more interesting for me to figure out how to be superior in areas where I'm naive, where I'm a novice.

The first four and a half years was me in the studio every day, writing songs for other people. I had jobs, too - eleven jobs. I worked at Kinko's, Fatburger, Subway - I was a sandwich artist - and I was a claims processor at Allstate Insurance.

I need to know how many records I've sold, how many album equivalents from streaming, which territories are playing my music more than others, because it helps me in conversations about where we're gonna be playing shows or where I might open a retail location, like a pop-up store or something.

In art, at a certain level, there is no 'better than.' It's just about trying to operate for yourself on the most supreme level, artistically, that you can and hoping that people get it.

Because I'm not in a record deal, I don't have to operate in an album format.

All in all, I just don't trust journalists - and I don't think it's a good practice for me to trust journalists.

The best revenge is massive success.

Rock 'n Roll: The most brutal, ugly, desperate, vicious form of expression it has been my misfortune to hear.

I would like to be remembered as a man who had a wonderful time living life, a man who had good friends, fine family - and I don't think I could ask for anything more than that, actually.

Basically, I'm for anything that gets you through the night - be it prayer, tranquilizers or a bottle of Jack Daniels.

You treat a lady like a dame, and a dame like a lady.

Oh, I just wish someone would try to hurt you so I could kill them for you.

I'm not one of those complicated, mixed-up cats. I'm not looking for the secret to life... I just go on from day to day, taking what comes.

People often remark that I'm pretty lucky. Luck is only important in so far as getting the chance to sell yourself at the right moment. After that, you've got to have talent and know how to use it.

There are things about organized religion which I resent. Christ is revered as the Prince of Peace, but more blood has been shed in His name than any other figure in history. You show me one step forward in the name of religion, and I'll show you a hundred retrogressions.

Cock your hat - angles are attitudes.

I like intelligent women. When you go out, it shouldn't be a staring contest.

May you live to be 100 and may the last voice you hear be mine.

A man doesn't know what happiness is until he's married. By then, it's too late.

I'm gonna live till I die.

Don't get even, get mad.

Hell hath no fury like a hustler with a literary agent.

Dare to wear the foolish clown face.

I'm like Albert Schweitzer and Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein in that I have a respect for life - in any form. I believe in nature, in the birds, the sea, the sky, in everything I can see or that there is real evidence for. If these things are what you mean by God, then I believe in God.

What I do with my life is of my own doing. I live it the best way I can. I've been criticized on many, many occasions, because of - acquaintances, and what have you.

Throughout my career, if I have done anything, I have paid attention to every note and every word I sing - if I respect the song. If I cannot project this to a listener, I fail.

Whatever else has been said about me personally is unimportant. When I sing, I believe. I'm honest.

I believe that God knows what each of us wants and needs. It's not necessary for us to make it to church on Sunday to reach Him. You can find Him anyplace. And if that sounds heretical, my source is pretty good: Matthew, Five to Seven, The Sermon on the Mount.

You gotta love livin', baby, 'cause dyin' is a pain in the ass.

Alcohol may be man's worst enemy, but the bible says love your enemy.

I'm for whatever gets you through the night.

For my money, Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business. He excites me when I watch him. He moves me. He's the singer who gets across what the composer has in mind, and probably a little more.

Nothing anybody's said or written about me ever bothers me, except when it does.

I am a thing of beauty.