"The image that the public gets is whatever they perceive it to be. Everybody has an opinion, everybody has their own vision, so I don't know what my public image is. I have no idea."

"My career has been a gradual climb. I think that's part of the reason why I've had longevity."

"It's very important to vote. People died for this right."

"I am not trying to change the world. I am just offering my gift that God gave me, and if somebody is moved by it, that's beautiful."

"We weren't put here to be miserable. We were put here to do the best we can, and we should take our energy and improve our state of being."

"I am still into the people I listened to growing up, so I completely remember what is like to be a fan, I haven't changed."

"It was amazing to me that, all of a sudden, I was hearing my music on the radio and coming out of cars."

"I've always been into films. I've been offered lots of films but they've always been these very stereotypical roles. They wanted me to play some gangster or street guy, or pimp, drug addict."

"A lot of people don't listen to the lyrics, really."

"I couldn't tell you what I am going to do next 'cause I have no idea, but I am open to anything."

"Music is my life, it is a reflection of what I go through."

"I don't think about the styles. I write whatever comes out and I use whatever kind of instrumentation works for those songs."

"If I had to associate myself with one song, it would probably be Let Love Rule. It's so simple and to the point. It speaks for itself."

"Change is growth. For me it has been a very spiritual and musical rebirth."

"I never sit down to write. When I'm moved, I do it. I just wait for it to come. You just hear it. I can't really describe writing. It's in my head."

"God is always in my life, and that's the most important thing to me."

"I have a great time with my band and on the stage we get along well."

"There are so many people that don't believe in themselves and don't have faith."

"If you listen to a lot of old funk records, the drums are really small. But you don't perceive it like that because the groove is so heavy."

"I was taught by my grandfather that anything that your mind can conceive, you can have. It's a reality."

"When I was a kid and I bought a record, I ripped that thing open, I wanted to know who was playing what, what studio it was cut at, who was the string arranger, who was the engineer."

"We're getting so pulled in by computers and technology, and our kids have their face in the computers all day. The human relationship is being diminished by this."

"I've woken up from dreams and the whole song is there. I'm listening to it in my dreams. I consciously have to wake myself up and get a tape recorder because I hear it like a record."

"I wouldn't play together with someone who likes to control everything like me."

"I'm more hungry now than I was 11 years ago. Which is great because I see a lot of artists that have been out for a long period of time. They get kind of fat."

"My mother gave lots of good advice and had a lot to say. As you get older, you realize everything she said was true."

"I identify with women more than men. I guess I have a strong feminine side."

"I don't play the tuba."

"I'm in this for the long haul. I've been making music my whole life."

"They think I'm being serious when actually I'm a very big clown. But you have to know me to see that. I'm constantly cracking up and cracking everybody else around me up."

"God gave me the gift to be able to play instruments and I have to play."

"If I were white, I'd get less criticism."

"I knew what I wanted to do from the time I was 5."

"Today, people are more into the glitz and the glamour of everything. We don't even read the inside of records anymore."

"The story that I wanna tell is pretty much about the way I grew up. Being bi-racial, growing up in a big city and being an artist."

"I made the record that my life had me make. Each one is like a diary."

"It's like a dream to come to Spain and stay for a couple of years and get somebody to teach me Spanish music."

"I knew Slash in high school, but not very well. Just knew him as this kid that used to hang out in the hallway. Pretty much looked then the way he does now."

"People see my photos and think I labor over my image and I'm this cool, brooding artist. But I'm just having fun with it."

"God forbid you sing about love. It's a lost concept."

"I am trying to get closer to God."

"I feel like I'm only in the beginning of my career. I've only made five albums. It's not a lot."

"Every night is different, you never know what it's going to be like. I remember every night. I don't like to compare them."

"Confusion makes people uncomfortable. They can't put their finger on me."

"My first guitar, a Fender Jazz Master, I traded it in for a Les Paul Deluxe."

"A dramatic thing, the first time you stand up to your dad."

"There's definitely an old school element to my music, but I also think it's modern."

"A lot of people pretty much only listen to the chorus."

"I've been compared to hundreds of artists, which just goes to show you that I'm not any one thing at all."

"I've had to work very hard, and I don't really have a category or fit into any niche, so each time I come out with a new record, it's like, I'm a new guy."