I feel like my best music is still ahead of me, and I can't wait for everyone to hear it.

I love the fact that I don't have a real job!

I grew up making music in my mum's basement, and I used to tell her I was going down there to work, and she'd say, 'That's not work. Go get a real job!' It took me signing a record deal to change her opinion!

I try to listen to as much different music as possible - I've always got music blasting in my ears!

I feel super, super grateful that I get to make music.

I take a lot of pride in my songs.

Nothing means more to me than making the best music and me getting better as a writer and producer... I want you to know I work really hard. The bar is really high.

I'm a big fan of country music.

I struggled with depression when I was in high school, and I remember thinking that if I got a record deal and got a hit song, that it would solve all those problems for me.

When I went to college, I made my first mixtape, and Sean gave me three verses for it. That was a big reason anyone ever listened to my music. I definitely wouldn't be talking to you now if it wasn't for Big Sean.

I was really lucky to grow up in an extremely diverse neighborhood.

I grew up in a city called Southfield, and it's one of the most diverse cities in the country. Just from the different socio-economic statuses and racial and ethnic groups I was around, I was around all different types of music from the beginning.

I didn't really experience any hardship like people tend to think of when they hear the words 'Detroit, Michigan.' I think Big Sean is a much better ambassador for the city.

Detroit is in my music consciously and subconsciously.

I want to headline Bonnaroo. I just want to do it more than anything in the world.

I like regular girls.

I have my dream job. I get paid to make music.

I stay up too late pretty much every night working on music.

I cared too much about people liking me because I didn't like myself enough.

I was constantly looking for things outside of myself to make me feel good, and I think now that feeling can come from the inside, and that's why I meditate now twice a day.

You need to stop looking outside and look inside - and it's such a good feeling. A feeling of love and that everything is going to be OK, and all you have to do is nothing.

It's just about being honest. I listen to a lot of stuff that's out there, some of which I wrote, and I'm like, 'Where is that? Where's the honesty?' So that's what I want to get to in my music now.

I think I was blessed with this talent for a reason. No one told me how to write a song, but I'm just good at it, you know. There are a lot of other things in my life that I'm not so good at, but writing a song is not one of them.

I just sing over hip-hop beats, you know. That's what I've been doing. That's what I started in '09 in my dorm room.

I did rap when I was a teenager - started rapping when I was nine, and started singing when I was 20. I kinda sing like a rapper would sing.

A lot of people considered my career as an artist largely over. Two albums got shelved. But I've made music since I was a little kid, and for the majority of that time, I wasn't paid for it. So I will always be making it.

From what I understand about Shakespeare - which isn't a lot - there was no copyright law when he was writing. He sampled at will, and it wasn't seen as a bad thing.

Tons of people inspire my music, and now when I do an interview, I'm scared to say who they are.

I'll read on Twitter, 'Do you still do music?' Music is all I do, all day.

Honestly, I don't go to clubs very often.

When you're a writer, your song has to resonate with the person you're writing for in order for them to want to sing it. But if you're an artist, you can sing whatever you want.

Avicii's been a supporter of my music for years, and we've been writing songs together for a long time.

There was a time when being loaded and loved and popular really mattered a lot to me. I'd say that when I was less popular, I learned to be happy without those things.

I always wanted everyone to love me, probably because I didn't love myself enough. But now I realize that when you're an artist, you're making the music that's in your head and in your heart, and not for any other reason.

It's not the job of the art to accommodate me and make me more money, make me more famous and get me more girls.

I think - for a period of time, I did think art was there to serve me, but it took me a minute to reset.

I had an initial wave of popularity that, in time, crashed, and I slowly became less popular and less successful, and I had to figure out who I was without those things.

I think that's what makes my music different from other artists in my lane is that I write every word that's on my album, and every word comes from a real experience or a real feeling that I've either experienced or felt. And I'm very particular about that, and I take a lot of pride in it, so you know if I say something on a song, I mean it.

My favorite television show is 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.'

I was trying to maintain a facade of infallibility, which is exhausting. Like, I used to wear tons of makeup because I had bad skin. I couldn't go out in public without makeup on.

I have a very wide spectrum of stuff that I grew up listening to.

Some of my early musical memories are attached to grunge.

I came to realize that if I was going to succeed in the music industry, I was going to have to learn how to perform my songs myself.

I consider myself a lyrics guy.

It's important to me that my songs actually make sense. So often, I turn on the radio, and I have no idea what the people are singing about. It may sound good, but when you listen, they're just saying words that rhyme. It's another song about nothing.

I think of the pop music that I've made in the past and hear on the radio as candy bars. And I was really good at making candy bars.

I wanted to see if I could be happy without a lot of stuff. And what I found out was, yeah, I really could.

I remember with my first album, I was so scared of messing it up, of blowing the opportunity, that I blew it.

A lot of people have trouble putting into words what my music is, and it's because of where I grew up.