As artists, we are eternally heartbroken.

My work as an artist is completely separate from my work as a philanthropist.

A record deal doesn't make you an artist; you make yourself an artist.

I am an artist, and I have the ability and the free will to choose the way the world will envision me.

What I've discovered is that in art, as in music, there's a lot of truth-and then there's a lie. The artist is essentially creating his work to make this lie a truth, but he slides it in amongst all the others. The tiny little lie is the moment I live for, my moment. It's the moment that the audience falls in love.

If you only believe that you're an artist when you have a big advance in your pocket and a single coming out, I would say that's quite soulless. You have to have a sense of your own greatness and your own ability from a very deep place inside you. I am the one with the litmus test in my hands of what people need to hear next.