Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I want to write songs with complete sentences. I almos have this obsession with short-changing words. I would never be so pretentious to say that my lyrics are poetry. ... Poems are poems. Song lyrics are for songs.
I was born fat and have always been, which was just fine and even healthy and cute until I turned ten or so. Puberty hit like a hurricane and brought a new set of rules. All of a sudden it was my fault I was chubby.
Whether or not cutting my hair was the right decision, it empowered me. But now I have no hair to wash men out of when I go through a breakup, so I'm going to have to get a new tattoo or something when that happens.
I grew up listening to the quartets and I loved that so much that I wanted to see if I could make music and make it happen. It was just a series of events ... me going to concerts and saying "I think I can do that".
I come from an art history background. I studied at a master's degree level; I chose to dork out on art for much of my adult life. A lot of my heroes are artists and a lot of my musical heroes have an artistic side.
I don't want to do children's music. I write kids songs, but the kids songs I write are for my kids - like when I'm putting them to bed. We sing some song that we made up but I don't want to make a record like that.
I mean, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, I think the young kids sell lot of records. But for an older kind of artist, more of a sort of heritage, vintage type of artist, you have to think outside the box.
When I first went to New York, I didn't really go out to clubs. It was the height of Culture Club so I didn't really have a social life. It was only after I had been to New York a few times that I started going out.
My wife even thinks our next album should be recorded in our house, and we should move all the furniture out to the garage. I'm not sure how many spouses would be supportive of that, much less come up with the idea.
I don't think you can be a mysterious rock star the same way you could in 1965 because there's too much information. Everything you do is available all the time. So the only thing you can rely on is not being false.
All the children of America, up to age seven or eight or nine or ten - they're really great artists. So here we've got this amazing work that very few people pay any attention to, and it's not valued by the culture.
Los Angeles traffic is just the worst thing in the world. It throws off timing so much. However, it's always warm and sunny. New Jersey has absolutely terrible weather, but the environment is really homey and chill.
I mean, that's kind of what this business is about in some ways. You're trying to make everybody like you. But you can't do that. You can't force everybody - anybody to like you if they're just not willing to do it.
I'm a major feminist. There's a real politic in life, where I've been in rooms where real decisions are made, and it's a lot of powerful white men. There are women in those rooms, but not as many as there should be.
When I go to a show, all I really want is to hear a performance that sounds legitimate, and not just going through the motions. I'm not sure any amount of jumping up and down really persuades me in either direction.
If I like something, I then have to study every single aspect of it to find out if there's more things that I would like, and it's just this weird hunger to want more. I always feel like there's so much that exists.
I wouldn't say my mother was my best friend, because that sounds odd, but we have a really tight bond and she is my friend on Facebook. Although she only goes on it to check up on me and sometimes we argue about it.
I don't think I was ever particularly mean. I can certainly think of some idiotic exchanges I've had. I was accused of destroying pop music, like Wagner destroyed opera - a guy in Germany started ranting that at me.
I used to hang out a lot in jazz clubs, and the groups took to a kid like me who wasn't afraid to get up and sing with a jazz band. Then I started to hang out in rock clubs and learned to carry off different styles.
I guess I found it useful to realise that everything is true at once, you know? You can pull back and say, 'Everything will be fine,' but you can also be in a situation and say, 'Not everything is going to be fine.'
For me, it's not about price. It's about necessity, quality, and usefulness. Like, I have my Wet N Wild 666 lip liner. It's 99 cents and always has been. I started using it when I was in high school, and it's great.
If I have one success in my relationship history, it's with the people who listen to my music. I think that they'll be there with me forever, and I'll be there with them forever. And I'm totally satisfied with that.
I was watching TV once, and 'Jailhouse Rock' comes on, and I'm like, 'What is this?' I started watching it, and at the end, I thought, 'This is what I want to do. That's what I want to be. That's for me. That's it!'
My fans are grown now. They are not expecting me to do the bubblegum pop I did 20 years ago, even though it was pretty substantive. It was saying more than bubblegum pop says today. I am continuing where I left off.
I can never tell what's going to end up being on an album until it's all finished. I'm reading the news everyday, and sometimes I just have to be away from it. And that ends up writing the songs for me a little bit.
I think one of the turning points for me was when my brother recorded the Neil Young MTV "Unplugged" performance from the TV. My brother is eight years older than me and he was starting to get into things like that.
I had a lil' chub-chub moment from ages 7 to 11. If somebody was teasing, they'd go straight to my fat. I was so insecure, I kept my shirt on in the pool, which is the worst because it sticks to your stomach anyway.
Of all of them, I just -- maybe because I know them, but I think 'N Sync has -- can maybe transcend that whole boy band thing, you know, because they got a good attitude and a good spirit, and they're talented guys.
There weren't sidewalks to skateboard on and malls to hang out in. There wasn't anything to do. And I was too scrawny to play football, and so I decided I was just gonna sit at the piano, because it made more sense.
In terms of the technology I use the most, it's probably a tie between my Blackberry and my MacBook Pro laptop. That's how I communicate with the rest of the world and how I handle all the business I have to handle.
My style is pretty clean, classic, and elegant, with some elements to make it a little funkier. If you see me on a normal day, I'm usually in a T-shirt and jeans, maybe with some cool sneakers, but I'm pretty basic.
Instead of investing our resources in locking people up, let's invest more of those resources in our fellow citizens so they don't end up in the system to begin with. And if they do, they can get back on their feet.
I started in high school to be interested in music and from there, I decided to study in college. Yeah, you're right, I did start late, but luckily, because of my schooling, I picked up a lot of ground pretty quick.
I love the fact that everybody slightly changes during the holidays. Most people are a little bit brighter and have a little bit more cheer around the Christmas time and are a little bit more giving, so I love that.
I think Sweden is known for people being a bit more quiet than other cultures, and I guess it's a mixture: shyness and leaving room for other people to talk. Of course, when people get drunk, all of that disappears.
I'm 19, I'm a girl, I'm very young, I like all sorts of different things, I like all sorts of different styles of music, I like all sorts of different styles of clothes, I like all sorts of different colors of hair.
I think I have allowed my voice to experiment with the different genres. And I think that I have just really enjoyed the journey of getting to know my voice and seeing what it's capable of, what it's not capable of.
Am I R&B because I'm black? Am I pop because I have a song called 'Milkshake'? Or can I just be who the hell I am? Good Lord, people make it seem like we're doing heart transplants here, but we're just making music!
A lot of people who have been perceiving my music have been trying to formulate a genre for it, and I think it's just a natural thing; it doesn't need to be categorized. It doesn't need to be sectioned, if you will.
I think that really what our training, what our culture, our religious institutions, our educational and cultural institutions should be about is preparing the heart for that journey outside of the cage of the ribs.
I love the music of Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu and more recently the music of Laura Marling. All these women share a strength and a wisdom in their voices and music that really makes me want to make music and sing.
I have been lucky and have a tight relationship with my daughter even if I don't see her as much as I did before but it got me thinking about all different women's situations - and what there wouldn't be without us.
You know what it would just be amazing to be remembered, you know like a mum telling a daughter ‘the boyband of my time, One Direction, they just had fun and they’re just normal guys but terrible, terrible dancers.’
I had this dream...that we had this new sixth member, for some reason, and he actually ended up being quite horrible! And he started a fight with me! And I wanted him to go away and none of the boys were helping me!
My philosophy for producing a record is for everyone involved, including myself, to get out of the way of the song, and at the same time, listen to it as closely as you can, and listen to where the song wants to go.
Seeing how those companies operate, it didn't amount to a massive vote of confidence in their artists. There was talk of me going to Columbia after that, but nothing happened. I got disillusioned, and I pulled back.
Once you start turning over rocks and reaching out to help people, there's a whole avalanche coming right behind it. And it seems never-ending. But when you see the fruits of your labor, you feel like it's possible.
I've always been interested in electronica, techno, trip-hop, that kind of music. The thing that bothered me about a lot of that music, though, was it seemed devoid of emotion. There wasn't a lot that felt personal.
I think that dreams, goals, and aspirations, all of that stuff - I'm really lucky to have been able to work with the talented people that I've been able to work with and I hope to be doing that for a very long time.
Faith that it's not always in your hands or things don't always go the way you planned, but you have to have faith that there is a plan for you, and you must follow your heart and believe in yourself no matter what.