I extract what I consider the best material from different sources. But often the material I perform comes from a very strange location in history, which are minstrel shows.

I really went back through a lot of the dark corridors of my life in this. I wanted people to know who I am based on my music, not on what they read in the...

Good is the director who lets you do what you have to do.

I can always remember that experience in Hawaii pleasantly on account of Elvis.

You can spend the money on new housing for poor people and the homeless, or you can spend it on a football stadium or a golf course.

The results of philanthropy are always beyond calculation.

I wanted to make an image for myself as an outlaw type. A kind of rock ‘n’ roll sensibility.

When it’s me in my living room, it’s pretty pure, and then what gets recorded involves more people, and it keeps escalating from there.

We’re just four guys and we are enjoying what we’re doing with Tool.

Songwritng is what I do.

On Eye of the Zombie, I had so-called studio musicians.

The sport of shooting is my life.

Sometimes, it’s just great to bring new people into the mix.

People have a right to ask questions and dig deep when you’re hurting people and things around you.

Every violinist has a different style, so it’s important to be able to recognise their styles. You don’t have to like everyone’s style but you have to know these styles.

Mahalia Jackson, I grew up around the corner from in Chicago.

As good as I am, I’m nothing without my band.

You see things differently at 40 than you do at 31. Especially if you got to 40 the way I did.

A small venue is so much more intimate and loose. You can actually be more spontaneous, I feel.

The large venue gives me the thrill that comes from the power in numbers.

It seems like every time you come up something happens to bring you back down.

Britney would make a better prostitute than Christina. She’s thicker.

There is an urgent need for Americans to look deeply into themselves and their actions, and musical poetry is perhaps the most effective mirror available. Every newspaper headline is a potential song.

Due to financial reasons, I dropped out of school after eight years of formal schooling.

The health industry, the fitness industry, was really starting to pick up. This was around the mid 80’s.

I decline to discuss, under compulsion, where I have sung, and who has sung my songs, and who else has sung with me, and the people I have known.

I mean, Janet Jackson? She’s like Michael Jackson with hair.

We should be recklessly abandoned to Jesus, and just turn it over to Him. Through the support I think the sacrifices will be made and we’ll all be cool with it.

So I just had to step up how I was doing it and the moment that I stepped up and the moment I focused all my energy on that is when things started to happen....

Technically, I’ve been retired for some time now. All I ever do is occasionally write songs for friends, such as one, for a friend who had just turned 80. I wrote a song for him...

I’ve been traveling all over the world for 25 years, performing, talking to people, studying their cultures and musical instruments, and I always come away with more questions in my head than can be answered.

It isn’t a band. It’s bigger than a band. It’s a lifestyle.

I have the time needed to support the album and tour.

There is not a lot that keeps me glued to the radio as I used to be.

I have dined with kings, I’ve been offered wings. And I’ve never been too impressed.

Walking through this life really is walking through fire.

There’s a lot of things that are said on the American Idol message board. I quit reading them because most of the people are very mean.

I haven’t really forgotten what it’s like to be a teenager and how much it sucked.

I was always very grateful to ’em and am grateful to ’em now. I went back a couple of years ago and did their 20th anniversary show. But the longer I stayed on Hee Haw,...

He’s written some great songs. I thought that “Blues Man” was a perfect song for me to do as a tribute.

The first job I had with the Smithsonian was as a field researcher among African American communities in Southwest Louisiana and Arkansas for the festival.

I’ve always thought of myself as being extremely lucky. The idea is to keep that luck going. Headlining the Stanley was a real kick. I think it’s the type of thing I could get used...

You know, times change and the elements change along with it. The elements of success. And my son’s very successful. He’s doing very well. And I have a younger daughter who sings.

Words cannot express how proud I am to be carrying the Olympic Torch for my home, New York, New York – the greatest city in the world.

I do not think men have more talent. There are a great many women in the arts; novelists, painters, sculptors, poets-but the proportion is far lower in the field of song writing.

Things change so fast, you can’t use 1971 ethics on someone born in 1971.

We can come from our own particular point of view and lay it down. We should not be throwing verbal rocks at each other. We’re all responsible to continue the growth of Hip Hop.

I recruited my dad to be my bass player and fired him on several occasions. He stayed on as a bus driver.

Let the poets cry themselves to sleep, and all their tearful words will turn back into steam.

Mission accomplished, we didn’t have any problems as far as violence goes.