I don't know what makes someone hip. The goal is artist achievement and the best work we can do with no limitation.

I don't know what makes someone hip. The goal is artist achievement and the best work we can do with no limitation.

At 15, I started listening to hard rock and heavy metal, but I would say it was more hard rock because I liked Kiss, Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, and eventually AC/DC.

Everything I do, whether it's producing or signing an artist, always starts with the songs. When I'm listening, I'm looking for a balance that you could see in anything. Whether it's a great painting or a building or a sunset.

Everything happens kind of the way it's supposed to happen, and we just watch it unfold. And you can't control it. Looking back, you can't say, 'I should've... ' You didn't, and had you, the outcome would have been different.

For me, the Beatles are proof of the existence of God.

From the time I was 9 years old, I loved magic. I was an only child, and I think that had a big impact on me. I always had grown-up friends even though I was a little kid. I would take the train from Lido Beach into Manhattan, and I'd hang out in magic shops.

I always feel like there's something magic in recording studios. There's a reason good music continues to be made in them. It's just some mojo element.

I don't even know what a traditional producer is or does. I feel like the job is like being a coach, building good work habits and building trust. You want to get to a point where you can say anything and talk about anything. There needs to be a real connection.

I guess edgy things tend to get my attention.

I like things that are unique and extreme.

I never made beats to make beats; I only made them when there was a record to make them for. That's one of the things that has changed in hip-hop that's made me like it less. It feels much more like it's a producer-driven medium, where there are all these tracks that are completely interchangeable.

I never really think so much about commercial success; I usually just think about records that move me, and 'Baby Got Back' was one that moved me.

I played more of an advisory role with Public Enemy. I really trusted them to make the music that they wanted to make, and the way The Bomb Squad worked with the... they created their whole own world of music.

I really loved crunk. I loved the extreme nature of it, how repetitious it was, and how these basic, angry chants would just be repeated over and over again.

I think with certain artists you want to hear their album... and then there are other artists who I like where maybe it's more about the single. I don't think there is going to be one way that everything works.

I was the only punk rocker at my high school. And there were at least a handful of black kids who liked hip-hop. Both were kind of the new music of the day, and it was lonely being the only punk.

I'm just trying to make my favorite music. That's how I work; I just do things based on the way they feel to me. I want to be touched by the music I'm making. Luckily, other people have shared that response to my work over the years.

I've always been an outsider. When I did magic, I was the only kid. When I worked with Johnny Cash, I was completely out of place in Nashville. And when I started Def Jam, I was the only white guy in the hip-hop world.

I've gotten to work with amazing people. I would say usually we get to a point before we get into the studio where there isn't that sense of anxiety or nervousness of who they are because I don't think it would be as productive in the studio if that was the case. But maybe meeting someone like Neil Young for the first time made me anxious.

In between 15 and 20 - probably at around 17 - my interests switched from hard rock to punk rock. And then by 20 they were circling out of punk rock back into Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, the stuff that I didn't get to when I was younger.

It's a big theme in my life, learning about myself and being a better person. I'm a work in progress; I have revelations every day.

My taste changes radically all the time, and I listen to whatever feels good. Another thing is that I'm in the studio so much of the time, and I listen to so much loud, aggressive music for work, that for pleasure, I'll listen to something else.

There's just a natural human element to a great song that feels immediately satisfying. I like the song to create a mood.

Usually when I start a new project there's a fear of the unknown; maybe it's a band I've never been in the studio with before. People are so different. It's almost like you need to go through the process, discover and unlock what it is that makes that band that band. And a lot of times they don't know it.

When you're vegan, you spend your time chasing protein, and you're eating food that's way too high in carbs. I could never catch up on protein.

The power of nature is such that it’s what all art strives to be. The more we can get in tune with the harmony of the planet, the more our art can benefit from that relationship.

You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.

Achievement is not always success, while reputed failure often is. It is honest endeavor, persistent effort to do the best possible under any and all circumstances.

Dissatisfaction with possession and achievement is one of the requisites to further achievement.

There is no personal achievement in being born beautiful.

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.

My proudest achievement has been the success of the shows and artists I have been involved with, because they were made in Britain.

The salary of the chief executive of a large corporation is not a market award for achievement. It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself.

Immortality is not a gift, Immortality is an achievement; And only those who strive mightily Shall possess it.

My real achievement is my daughter and my three beautiful grandchildren.

Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.

Liberalism regards life as an adventure in which we must take risks in new situation, in which there is no guarantee that the new will always be the good or the true, in which progress is a precarious achievement rather than inevitability.

Coming to understand a painting or a symphony in an unfamiliar style, to recognize the work of an artist or school, to see or hear in new ways, is as cognitive an achievement as learning to read or write or add.

The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.

For unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.

The mind must see visual achievement of the purpose before action is initiated.

Creativity is a great motivator because it makes people interested in what they are doing. Creativity gives hope that there can be a worthwhile idea. Creativity gives the possibility of some sort of achievement to everyone. Creativity makes life more fun and more interesting.

Peace is not the product of a victory or a command. It has no finishing line, no final deadline, no fixed definition of achievement. Peace is a never-ending process, the work of many decisions.

We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community... Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own.

You must intensify and render continuous by repeatedly presenting with suggestive ideas and mental pictures of the feast of good things, and the flowing fountain, which awaits the successful achievement or attainment of the desires.

Badges mean nothing in themselves, but they mark a certain achievement and they are a link between the rich and the poor. For when one girl sees a badge on a sister Scout's arm, if that girl has won the same badge, it at once awakens an interest and sympathy between them.

We are the only country in the world that has taken people from so many different backgrounds, which is a great achievement by itself, but an even greater achievement is that we have turned all of that variety and diversity into unity.

The United States has made a massive effort since the end of the Second World War to secure the dominance of its films in foreign markets - an achievement generally pushed home politically, by writing clauses into various treaties and aid packages.