Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I loved everything about show business, meeting the stars, the whole ambience. I was living every young kid's dream. I was told a pop singer's life was three years, but I was still making money seven years later.
I think 'Free' captured a moment in my life where I was finding myself. There's a lot of content on there about breaking free and just developing your own philosophies, and ideologies, or world views or whatever.
For years and years, I was beset with snide remarks by certain members of the press, where they would turn John Oates into a joke, or they would trivialize what I do, which never really bothered me all that much.
That is amazing that a guy like St. Jerome who lived in the fourth century could bring people together. Sometimes you think people are dead and forgotten. But they can actually bring you together in the best way.
To me, Modest Mouse is one of the best bands ever. I actually wasn't surprised that they made it big. It's always weird to see it happen, and it happens so fast, all of a sudden songs are in the background on TV.
I love to smile. I love to laugh. I like to hear jokes. For instance, when I'm on the road, every night I watch 'Seinfeld.' I find it somewhere. I think it's so funny, and I watch the repeats over and over again.
I always thought that feminine, softer side was just too vulnerable to put out there, because then it's like you're opening up a door for everybody to come in, and you don't know who's going to come in that door.
When I was born, I was colored. I soon became a Negro. Not long after that I was black. Most recently I was African-American. It seems we're on a roll here. But I am still first and foremost in search of freedom.
In poor environment, I find great inspiration. Many of the men and women whom I admire as artists, the things they write, the songs they sing, the admission is filled with inspired moments to overcome oppression.
I mean these people who work on Broadway, in my opinion, are the most gifted of everyone. I mean they really know how to dance. They really know how to act. They really know how to sing. They know how to perform.
My music is music that Christians and Catholics can listen to. Muslims. Buddhists. And non-religious people as well. It's just music. You can look at the music in several different ways. It's music for everybody.
When I do an album I try to find a producer that's excited about something that they want me to sing, and I check with the record company to find out what they think they can sell - which is their No. 1 priority.
I always felt like what I was doing wasn't selling toys; I was making a happy sound at Christmas. When people hear something so familiar, it brings them back to a special place, and that's been meaningful for me.
Experience is all I have. I equate song-writing with archeology. Every day you dig. You dig into different places within yourself - even finding places that you've rarely been. And buried within the soil is song.
People never think of entertainers as being human. When you walk out on stage, the audience think, 'Nothing can go wrong with them.' We get sick and we have headaches just like they do. When we are cut, we bleed.
We like to take picnics and sandwiches, driving through the green lanes. My wife loves the house, the dogs, and the animals we have around us, the deer and the fox that comes and pokes his head through the hedge.
Actually, I wouldn't know what to do now if I had hair. I'm pretty comfortable being bald. It doesn't bother me. I've never had one girl tell me she didn't want to have sex with me because I didn't have any hair.
We need to really start taking care of each other and not profiting off of each other's miseries. That shouldn't be our reality. That shouldn't be what we aspire to. It's not admirable in any way, shape, or form.
I want to give the girls who admire us everything I can. I don't want to just fill them with selfies and crap. That's not what I'm about. I'm about, 'Be aware of the world and that you're not the only one in it.'
I was 17 when I auditioned for 'Miss Saigon.' I really grew up doing that show. I pretty much knew, almost a year into 'Miss Saigon,' that I was going to be a performer, that I was going to be singing and acting.
We give you this story. It is for the audience to be moved and gut wrenched, not us. It isn't as if we don't go through those real feeling and it isn't as if I don't cry three or four times a night. I usually do.
I'd go over to my grandmother's house, and she'd be playing opera. They loved opera. Not only did they play it on the radio, but they played it on their piano. Everybody learned how to read music and how to play.
For me, this band and the music that I write and this touring thing that I do and playing in front of people, singing, and making a lot of noise on guitar - all that was more important than a lot of other things.
Alanis Morissette - I love how she's not afraid to say what she wants to say. Love it or hate it, she's going to say it. And her vocals are crazy; they're amazing, and I also love how her music is really organic.
I didn't know my mother had it. I think a lot of women don't know their mothers had it; that's the sad thing about depression. You know, you don't function anymore. You shut down. You feel like you are in a void.
When I grew up there wasn't air-conditioning or anything of that nature, and this old car had a wall thickness of about ten inches. So we had a little warmer house in the winter and a little cooler in the summer.
I want to be stereotyped. I want to be classified. I want to be a clone. I want to be masochistic. I want to be sadistic. I want a Suburban Home. I don't want no hipppie pad; I want a house just like Mom and Dad.
I call my life a beautiful mess and organised chaos. It's just always been like that. My entire life things have been attracted to me and vice versa that turn into chaotic nightmares or I create the chaos myself.
It is very much the theme of our President, President Thabo Mbeki, whose passion is for Africa to work together, and for Africans to get up and do things for us. We are trying as women to do things for ourselves.
Let's have the music that will open the door to millions of people... the kind of music that will not make people think only of the song or even of the singer... not music that is confined to the merely personal.
It's quite different, the kind of love you get in a smaller club and the kind of love you get on a big proscenium stage. It's quite different. I like both of them, but I'm in love with the smaller, intimate club.
I've learned over the years that people are human and have mood swings, regardless of how talented they are. Today, I'm looking at life from a realistic point of view instead of the way I would want things to be.
Music is a spiritual doorway its power comes from the fact that it plugs directly into the soul, unlike a lot of visual art or textual information that has to go through the more filtering processes of the brain.
Actually I think Art lies in both directions - the broad strokes, big picture but on the other hand the minute examination of the apparently mundane. Seeing the whole world in a grain of sand, that kind of thing.
Basically, I would like to be considered for roles that are well-written. I think that part of the problem that we've had as actors is that they insist on looking at us as Latino actors and not as actors, period.
My parents were serious working musicians, but they were not stars - not like pop stars that you have now. They had to make a living and that meant touring, working hard, going on the road - and we were roped in.
I should write a musical. That is probably one of the final areas that I should pay attention to, because it does kind of involve everything. It's got theatre, it's got young, pretty people... And it's got money!
Crazy as it sounds, I'm a believer in destiny and serendipity, and I have had cosmic experiences all my life. Something told me I was meant for greater stuff. And look, I've had a baby! And I've written an opera!
Climate change has always been sort of my main focus. I think also with [what happened in Fukushima, Japan] there's still a lot to think about in terms of what's coming down the pike into the world's oceans, too.
You see so many artists who are so talented end up living sad, empty lives. This industry takes so much out of you that without the accountability and leaving God in the center, you can be left so empty and void.
I didn't want to play a rancher. I didn't want to have a cowboy hat on; I wanted to get away from that in the things I do. But I read the script and fell in love with it. As hard as I tried to say no, I couldn't.
I remember in 37 when trolley cars were so big in New York. It was five cents for a ride... There used to be open-air buses, and you could go up a spiral staircase and sit up on top. Those were great, great days.
I feel positive about what I do. And, whoever is doing reggae, they have to have positive words and no negativity. They have to be positive. Yes, if you call it reggae, and it is negative words, it is not reggae.
I am pretty involved with everything that goes on, and overtime have learned a lot about the business side of things. I have an amazing manager, who understands the business really well, so he is a great teacher.
I felt a little uncomfortable because, when I went in to the military, I was the main male vocalist they had and when I came out they had like two or three vocalists. Otis came in when I was in the military, too.
I'm still friends with the girls I grew up with, and they're all on their second child. They're all like, 'Don't be in your 40s by the time you have kids,' and I'm like, 'Why not? There's nothing wrong with that.'
For the next approximately three years, I have got Nathan to take care of. I know that once he graduates from high school, he will be off doing whatever it is he is going to be doing - probably playing ice hockey.
It seems to me that unless you or someone very close to you has had a bad head injury, you really can't fathom it. You have no concept of what it is all about. It was so difficult for my whole family, not just me.
I'm a songwriter. So I'm OK. But when I wrote "Stand By Me" as a song and to know that the song will probably be here for hundred and hundreds of years to come, it's great, you know. And it was just simple lyrics.
When people hear our record, they're not going to be able to put us into the 'New Metal' category or the 'pop-punk' category or the 'aggressive emo' category. I think people will be able to take it for what it is.