“People can hear my songs are coming from something real. I mean what I say; I’m not just writing to impress critics or young girls, or older girls. The way I talk is the way I write a song.”

My dad was just the king of finding these little spots for us to stay that we should never have been staying at.

There will never be another Michael Jackson, a huge pop star since (the age of) 7.

When I see your face, there’s not a thing that I would change ’cause you’re are amazing just the way you are.

You pick up some fans and a handful of haters along the way.

I know I’m probably much too late to try and apologize for my mistakes.

I feel it’s my job to continue being a student of music if I want to continue being an artist and a producer of other artists. You have to keep filling your mind with other music. You have to be ahead of the curve.

You know, I just do whatever feels right to me! And so that’s what you’re gonna get!

A grown man should always carry cash, right? I don’t know who told me, but someone told me that a long time ago, and the biggest turnoff is when a guy doesn’t have cash on him.

I just write songs that I strongly believe in and that are coming from inside. There’s no tricks. It’s honesty with big melodies.

Ever since I was a kid, this was all I wanted to do. I’ve wanted to do music. I wanted to sing. It’s all I know.

We all grew up idolizing another musician. That’s how this works. That’s how music is created.

I don’t think anyone ever plans to change line-ups, but it’s something that comes with being in bands. I was in a band once and there were always problems – members come and go – and some of the world’s biggest bands have changed line-ups loads!

You can’t knock on opportunity’s door and not be ready.

I love artists like Prince, who hold on to that element of mystery.

Music is not math. It’s science. You keep mixing the stuff up until it blows up on you, or it becomes this incredible potion.

Doo-wop is special music to me because it’s so straightforward and melody-driven and captures emotions.

Freedom comes from seeing the ignorance of your critics and discovering the emptiness of their virtue.

A law which attempts to say you can criticize and ridicule ideas as long as they are not religious ideas is a very peculiar law indeed.

Every opinion based on scientific criticism I welcome.

The clear problem of the outlawing of insult is that too many things can be interpreted as such. Criticism, ridicule, sarcasm, merely stating an alternative point of view to the orthodoxy, can be interpreted as insult.

I’m more critical of the films I make than anyone else.

I don’t have to hear that criticism, that idotic criticism anymore.

There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.

Criticism is easy; achievement is difficult.