Growing up, Tina Turner was definitely one of my influences, and, um, I take things from different artists, and I put them in my music, and I put them in my persona and my - they help me form into the artist that I am, so - for people to actually hear that come through the music is exciting.
I have a lot of younger fans, obviously the choices I make often influence them. But having said that, it's kind of the best motivation in the world to stay positive and make good choices.
I'm not the mixtape guy who's gonna put out a new one every month. I'm gonna allow my albums to marinate and resonate and whatever type of 'ates' they can do. I'm gonna let my music grow on them.
For years, I was quite a militant atheist. I wanted to burn down all the churches or turn them into second-hand record emporiums.
The good news is, Americans know firsthand the benefits of a free market - more choices, lower prices, higher quality - and there is no reason why we cannot help them see these same benefits in health care.
When you deprive people of their right to live in dignity, to hope for a better future, to have control over their lives, when you deprive them of that choice, then you expect them to fight for these rights.
When you read the New Testament, you see the Holy Spirit was supposed to change everything so that this gathering of people who call themselves Christians had this supernatural element about them.
I went on to Cincinnati. I had got a taste of the big cities and them bright lights. I stayed there until I was about 18 or 19 and then I went on to Detroit.
Let your children go if you want to keep them.
Everybody in America is soft, and hates conflict. The cure for this, both in politics and social life, is the same - hardihood. Give them raw truth.
After I'd hit a home run and took my position in the field, the fans in the bleachers began throwing packages of tobacco at me. I stuffed them in my pocket.
I watch mediocre shows that have been on for three or four seasons, and feel angry at them.
My friends and family are my support system. They tell me what I need to hear, not what I want to hear and they are there for me in the good and bad times. Without them I have no idea where I would be and I know that their love for me is what's keeping my head above the water.
The stigma that was once attached to things society deemed unhealthy served the purpose of making them undesirable. With the stigma gone, many people see little reason not to do whatever feels good at the moment.
The thing I like most about books is that anybody can afford them. They have an innate valuelessness.
I grew up on food stamps. I come from a very humble background. And I've had many friends that have been destitute - you know, running into trouble - and places like The Midnight Mission have given them hope and have fed them and gotten them back on the right path.
Find people who think like you and stick with them. Make only music you are passionate about. Work only with people you like and trust. Don't sign anything.
I work very hard on all my poems, but most of the work consists of trying not to sound as if I had worked. I try to make them sound as natural as possible, but within a quite strict form, which to my ears has a lot to do with musical rhythm and sound.
I think that people are most comfortable when they can put you in a box - and that's very easy to do that when someone can put you in more serious roles. I'm not blaming them for that - it's just up to me to show people what I can do.
I'm very good with technology, I always have been, and with machines in general. They seem not threatening like other people find them, but a source of fun and amusement.
My most cryptic, strange songs might be my most personal, but that isn't how people are going to receive them, because they don't know the code.
No men who really think deeply about women retain a high opinion of them; men either despise women or they have never thought seriously about them.
That case with my two sisters? That was a disaster. It was. They're really fine people. When my family and my two sisters' families - their children - grew up and so on, it just wasn't the same. But we took care of them very nicely.
I live in L.A. so I worry my kids aren't that connected to Britain, I suppose I don't want them to become American kids. We try to get back three or four times a year. When they go to school they speak with a British-American accent but when they come home to us they go back to their British accent.
House guests should be regarded as perishables: Leave them out too long and they go bad.
The system of domination is founded on depriving nations of their true identity. It seeks to deprive nations of their culture, identity, self-confidence and in this way dominate them.
All spiritual things must have in them a childlike quality. The belief in immortality rests not very much on the hope of going on. Few of us want to do that, but we would like very much to begin again.
If someone does something illegal on Twitter - like incite hatred, or make racist remarks, or threaten to rip someone's intestines out if they insult Justin Bieber - then there has to be some way of censuring them.
What happens is that your wretched memory remembers the words and forgets what's behind them.
He that raises a large family does, indeed, while he lives to observe them, stand a broader mark for sorrow; but then he stands a broader mark for pleasure too.
I look at my paintings for a very long time before letting them out of my studio. I like to get on the treadmill and look around at all of my paintings while I exercise. I try to stare them down to make them reveal their weaknesses. If they reveal weaknesses, they get repainted.
I've seen children's eyes light up when I tell them about black holes and the Big Bang.
So don't get me wrong, I love my songs, and I still love hearing them. That's history, baby.
Really you just gotta keep chugging along and keep a positive attitude and get through all the problems. You gotta face them, otherwise you don't get through.
For me it always comes down to what is a good song and I'm very old fashioned in the way that I like to make songs that have something classic about them whether you can play them with an orchestra or an electro synthesizer or an acoustic guitar.
People who are employed in a way they don't like - my heart cries for them.
