That whole thing of replicating what others do is a siren call. The sirens lure you to the rocks of unoriginality.

Drummers shouldn't just think of themselves as drummers. If you're going to be a musician, you should expand your horizons, compose things, and work with other instruments.

People are disappointed when they hear my American accent because they regard 'The Police' as an English band but I've clung to my American-ness all the way.

Making music has gotten easier; selling it has gotten harder. Making music has been democratized, but the market is in the hands of fascists.

Don't believe everything you see on VH1.

Music has an immediate effect. If you want to go beyond that and look underneath, film is a good way of explaining.

[If] you don't have any soul and you don't have any talent, jazz is what you should do. ... any fool can do it; all you gotta do is practice.

Ive got Arabic music in my blood.

In a film score, the last thing you want to do is take people out of the movie. The music is secondary. In opera, the music is the main event.

I'd rather duplicate it myself. Another of our favourite techniques.

The great opera composers were so good at their job, that the whole genre came to be built around the concept of the composer's vision.

And you look beautiful, " she added."I look like a cake.""But a beautiful cake.

I been with strangers all day and they treated me like family. I come in here to family and you treat me like a stranger.

The whole idea of being here is to ask everything...

As you get older, there are going to be a few more challenges, but thankfully I'm still feeling good.

I'm a big fan of Shake Shack.

Ideology is like breath: you never smell your own.

Nurturing has the ability to transform people's lives.

The woman who bore me is no longer alive, but I seem to be her daughter in increasingly profound ways.

The crisis of black politics can only be resolved through the development of multiclass, multiracial, progressive political structures.