The music business is motivated by money. Music is motivated by energy and feelings.

The business aspect is one of the most important things about having a music career because every choice you make in a management meeting affects your life a year-and-a-half from now.

Music is spiritual. The music business is not.

I worked hard all my life as far as this music business. I dreamed of the day when I could go to New York and feel comfortable and they could come out here and be comfortable.

For my birthday this year my girlfriends - who knew I'd just inherited my dad's turntable - gave me a carton of albums like 'Blue Kentucky Girl ' by Emmylou Harris and 'Off the Wall ' by Michael Jackson. It's all stuff we grew up with. I mean you can't have a music collection without Prince's 'Purple Rain' - it just can't be done!

With my daughter we do arts and crafts we read a lot we listen to music and we cut the strings off balloons and bounce them around after birthday parties.

I quit high school on my birthday. It was my senior year and I didn't see the point. This was 1962 and I was ready to make music.

The best music is essentially there to provide you something to face the world with.

I've been all over the world. I love New York I love Paris San Francisco so many places. But there's no place like New Orleans. It's got the best food. It's got the best music. It's got the best people. It's got the most fun stuff to do.

Music's always been really cathartic. It's the best drug for me to get away from the everyday pressures just for a second via a good song.

To not be modest about it you'll find that with only a couple of exceptions most of the musicians that I've worked with have done their best work by far with me.

Music is the best means we have of digesting time.

Music is the best way for me to say I love you.

I want to talk to the bullied kids of the world. Tell them to hang on it will get better. Know that an 'Iron Chef ' actors musicians artists and all successful people have probably been bullied in their life. And the best part of your life is yet to come. Whatever it takes to live do it!

I don't know why it's the same reason why you like some music and you don't like others. There's something about it that you like. Ultimately I don't find it's in my best interests to try and analyze it since it's fundamentally emotional.

Personally I just think rap music is the best thing out there period. If you look at my deck in my car radio you're always going to find a hip-hop tape that's all I buy that's all I live that's all I listen to that's all I love.

Jazz is a very democratic musical form. It comes out of a communal experience. We take our respective instruments and collectively create a thing of beauty.

The awesomeness of God is that even in the works of the Beach Boys Beatles etc. the beauty of the music is a mere reflection of what God does everyday. He creates music of all kinds and moods.

I first fell in love with music when I was a little boy. When I first heard music I felt the beauty in it. Then being able to tap along on a table top and box was great but my favorite thing to do was to watch records spin. I would almost get hypnotized by it. These things are what drew me in initially.

I'm very proud of my love for Whitney Houston. She really changed my life. She made my life a better life. She was so beautiful in her love for God her love for her family and her love for music. She truly loved her music. She could do everything! She had flawless rhythm flawless pitch flawless feeling and flawless beauty.

I just try to play music from my heart and bring as much beauty as I can to as many people as I can. Just give them other alternatives especially people who aren't exposed to creative music.

Baalbek is so beautiful. It is the heart of beauty in the Middle East - I want to embrace these people with my music. I will try so hard for them. Their president is a Christian their prime minister is a Muslim. Music is for everyone.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned. But I remember the beauty and thrill of being moved by Broadway musicals - particularly the endings of shows.

For two thousand years the Church has guided the development of music carefully legislating to fuse artistic talent and aesthetic beauty with the demands of the Faith.