Jason Mraz quotes:
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I'm totally into new age and self-help books. I used to work in a bookstore and that's the section they gave me, and I got way into it. I just loved the power of positive thinking, letting yourself go.
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If you're a new artist, practice your art and share it. Set up shop somewhere, whether it's a street corner or a coffee shop. I got my start in a coffee shop that didn't even have live music. I wanted to play in coffee shops that did have live music, but I didn't have an audience.
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Well, my view before was a Western view, and I certainly understand marriage equality and civil rights, equal rights for all, but having visited developing nations and some of the poorest nations in the world, I realize how deep it goes and how much work really needs to be done to create equality for all.
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It's easier to write from my own life, and it's also more fun. I always write about relationships, for instance, whether they're romantic relationships, friendships, encounters... there's always a lesson to be learned from them.
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I always write to understand my place in the world. I can see myself and my life unfold on the page, and I can understand my strengths, my weaknesses - I can see where I need to step up a bit.
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But that guitar is the perfect companion to the human voice. You rest it against your gut, against your heart, and when you strum it the vibrations go outwards for all to hear, but the vibration also hits you on your body.
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Steven, my friend who came out to me my senior year, was a huge Madonna fan. So I may know all the words to 'Bedtime Stories,' 'Erotica,' and a few more of her albums - and we may have watched 'Truth or Dare' a thousand times.
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I recently read that it's the left brain that does all that calculating, and the right brain that does the poetry. Somehow I've veered way towards the left. I've been doing it for years. Maybe I do art to balance it out.
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What I'd love to do is work with kids in the U.S. to raise their awareness and encourage them to be global citizens. We're all connected these days; we can listen to the same music as kids all around the world and share our ideas.
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I've played Madison Square Garden and Jones Beach several times, but I personally don't enjoy those larger venues. I much prefer theater or a performance space.
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But my strength was in singing and songwriting, which was a new discovery for me when I was 18. And I decided if I pursued songwriting, which is what was closest to my heart, then there would be no competition. I would just live my life being myself and living my dream.
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I think it's important to earn your fan base and not just try to immediately advance to the top. If you ride to the top quickly, you're liable to fall as quickly. Take your time. It's a long journey ahead of you as an artist. There's nowhere that you're supposed to be other than right now living inside of your art.
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I don't think love is a tricky issue at all. Love is best understood when we share: Share time, energy, food, resources, insights, information, whatever. It's usually thought of as something that exists between two people, but that's just because it's easier to see and feel in the space between them. Each person is sharing a lot with the other.
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I guess my music career is my personal life. You know, I've always been a writer who wants to write about my experiences. And so this experience being added to that, I - I want to live extraordinary experiences. And when I give advice to people, I want it to be sage advice.
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I have an amazing social-media wing man who manages my Facebook fan site. All my blogs get copied there. My e-mail in-box exploded, and I don't have that kind of time. My mom and sister have their whole life on Facebook, and I'm not there.
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Traveling has a major impact on what I do, cause all over the world I'm meeting all kinds of people. And relationships is the second major impact that I have. I just enjoy the variety that the world has to offer.
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You can't live the rest of your life carrying a pain because your parents couldn't get along. I choose to spend my life crafting a joy.
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My strength was in singing and songwriting, which was a new discovery for me when I was 18. And I decided if I pursued songwriting, which is what was closest to my heart, then there would be no competition. I would just live my life being myself and living my dream.
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I have an amazing social-media wing man who manages my Facebook fan site. All my blogs get copied there.
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When I finished performing 'I Won't Give Up' for the first time, I opened my eyes, and I think there was maybe six people in there when I started, and when I finished there was about 30 people, all standing around with their jaws dropped in complete silence. I said, 'Okay, I think this song has some power to it.' So coffee shops work for me.
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A rescue mission doesn't involve going in and just taking a child and leaving. You can't just choose any child at random. Every kid has a case that is based on that child's original family. So, we made it over to a village, found the child; we were interacting with the child.
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I have a very awesome seat in the house every time I play. When the lights come up, and the sound turns on, I'm playing for a roomful of human beings. And geographical and political borders just all dissolve. And we unite through rhythm inhalation. I mean, I'm so grateful that, you know, audiences around the world connect to English music.
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I've asked to go back into theaters and smaller venues because to me, in smaller venues I can really demonstrate my commitment to quality. Theaters are great containers for music.
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The more I travel around the world, the more I see people want the same thing - to be happy. We wouldn't be in a monetary system if we didn't have to work, so if my music can contribute to happiness, then that's my main responsibility.
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Yes' is the mother of all positive words, next to 'love.' Maybe 'love' is the father of all positive words.
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I always think of the live show first, where the song is gonna go in the show. That's why they aren't sad songs. When I play, I want to make people happy, not sad. It's such a pleasure for me to do what I do, and I want other people to feel some form of that pleasure, too.
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There's a certain feeling of giving, a certain feeling of generosity in love songs. When you sing a song of love, you're actually giving something to yourself, too. You're singing and casting these affirmations of love out into the universe. It resonates in your body in a way that feels extraordinary.
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I meet people every single day who have heard the music and incorporated it into their lives. I feel like I have a tribe all around the world.
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It's from being melancholy and having my human down experiences that I learn, that I overcome, that I transform - and these realizations I put into song. That's what I choose to put in my backpack and carry with me around the world.
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I've always enjoyed singing and can't recall a time in my life where I wasn't singing. I'm most grateful for the strength I have in that department. I have a lot of bad habits on the guitar which limits my playing ability. But I get a little better each year.
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I think it's important and I think it's true that our life experience is going to be about our attitude, our thoughts, our beliefs, our speech and our actions. We can transform our life experience simply by changing our language.
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I want to know why we exist and what I can do while I'm existing. Basically. it's learning how to exist, wholely, consciously. Growing up on fast food and television shows, you can easily forget to exist. You can even be treated as if you don't.
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A lot of those ideal towns are all starting to look the same, the specifics are starting to disappear. So we need to retain a love for life, a love for one's family, a love for where one's really from.
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Genre-spanning is the effort to make the live show interesting. It's also a great way to challenge yourself as a writer.
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My goal is to show everyone that they, too, can do what they love to do.
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My parents were always very supportive and accepting. They even shared my curiosity for life, or perhaps I theirs.
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Well, for me, what I've learned at the very end of this, love is sharing, and I think that really is, for me, the best place to go to experience love, is sharing.
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Whether or not I tour forever, I'm not sure. I would love to spend more time living in harmony with nature rather than flying all over the world and contributing to global warming, you know what I mean?
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In one of my songs, I say fame is nothing more than loving someone. So I'm grateful every day that there's so many fans of people out there that love my music and feel they're connected to me through that.
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I'm Yours' was written effortlessly in about 20 minutes' time, and I honestly thought it was more of like a kids' song, and I didn't do anything with it for years.
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New York City has the most beautiful women.
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I do feel most at home playing live, but the feeling of getting into the studio to see the new songs take shape was really incredible.
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There's a certain feeling of giving, a certain feeling of generosity in love songs. When you sing a song of love, you're actually giving something to yourself, too. You're singing and casting these affirmations of love out into the universe.
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Anytime someone uses one of my songs for anything - a ceremony or a sacred moment - that, to me, is a high honor. I'm proud of the song at that point because I'm trying to write something for humans - whichever humans want to get on board and put this in their soundtrack to their soul's development or spiritual lives.
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If I'm in a relationship, that girl gets showered with letters from the road. I pour my heart into it.
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When I was in high school, The Dave Matthews Band was a local band, and that was the first time I was starting to connect with a live band that was something that wasn't on the radio or TV.
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Music was always the distraction, so it was the obvious choice to pursue. My dad always said to find a job I love to do, that way it wouldn't feel like a job. So I did that.
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Our shows are packed with laughter and light-hearted songs to lift the listener from their everyday life. We encourage the audience to participate in any way.
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Well, I've been happily supporting myself for ten years now on the hustle and trade of live entertainment. I guess my breakthrough moment was when I decided to go for it once and for all.
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In my relationship, I was giving myself away to make the relationship better, but in actuality, wasn't doing better by doing that. I became less of a man.
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Two halves don't make a whole. Two wholes make a whole. In my relationship, I was giving myself away to make the relationship better, but in actuality, wasn't doing better by doing that. I became less of a man.
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When you sing a song of love, you're actually giving something to yourself, too. You're singing and casting these affirmations of love out into the universe. It resonates in your body in a way that feels extraordinary.
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I think anyone who uses the web is smart and will profit.
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And if you're singing to someone, or if they're singing along, and suddenly you're in harmony, then it's actually making a huge difference on a subatomic level that is actually transforming the world.
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Music is a weapon in the war against unhappiness.
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Songs always get better after you start playing them live.
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I hope everyone wakes up and appreciates life.
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Getting on stage is a bonus, that's my therapy, that's when I can tell stories and it all makes sense.
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If it's a broken part, replace it. If it's a broken arm then brace it. If it's a broken heart, then face it.
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I was curious as to why a million Americans weren't lining the beaches in boats and with buckets to preserve the life sustaining resource that is the Gulf of Mexico. Personally, as a surfer, I was most sorry for my fellow watermen. Seeing beaches closed due to contamination just broke my heart. If that ever happened in San Diego I'm afraid I might be forced to move.
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I thought I was the center of the world and that my parents had nothing to do with me, and I regret that. I wish I had been a little kinder to my family and been friends with them and let them into my life and shared with them the things I was doing rather than feel like I needed to do my life in secret.
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I can't predict what songs will do to the collective consciousness.
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You're an island of reality in an ocean of diarrhea.
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You make all the fashion statements just by dressing up your mind.
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You're letting go of having the best possible experience you can have regardless of who you are and where you are. I think that can be applied to all things, but it's easier said than done.
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I love eating healthy and doing the yoga thing, because I think I'm going to live to a thousand doing so. And that's because I don't want to leave here so soon. I want to stick around as long as I can, but I know that's not going to be the case. We're all going.
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I came from Mechanicsville, Virginia, where you have four seasons.
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Open up your plans and damn you're free!
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I aim to write songs in a way that you don't have to have gone to Ghana to relate to it, you really just have to have a heart.
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How we treat food is how we treat ourselves. Eating and buying organic means we're committed to a healthier world overall. It's good karma.
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If you have nothing but love for your avocados, and you take joy in turning them into guacamole, all you need is someone to share it with.
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I didn't want to be a headshot and get a chance to go compete to sing-that's not me.
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Spirituality is nothing more than the art of paying attention. When I give my whole heart and mind to a task such as singing - life's worry, suffering, or conflicts don't exist in that moment. Additionally, singing is about breath work, which is the most essential practice to living a conscious & healthy life.
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I know that if I do the right amount of, say, meditation and hot yoga or something, I can move the energy through my body and get rid of my cold within twenty-four hours.
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If we truly want to have world peace, we have to end human trafficking,
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I buy records from all across the board. I get kind of a hybrid of influences in my own music.
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Whenever I'm in need of inspiration and mantras, I go straight to simple affirmations. 'I am strong', 'I am brave', 'I can do this' and 'I'm awesome'. Whatever you put after 'I am', you will become. 'I am' are the two most powerful words, so make sure what you say after 'I am' is what you want to experience. It's like a magic trick.
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I am who I am, you are who you are, and everything else is a perception based on acceptance, deception, smoke, mirrors, and so on. It's what's between us that seems to justify our accidental identities.
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I won't give up. Even if the skies get rough.
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Well, I won't give up on us, Even if the skies get rough I'm giving you all my love, I'm still looking up
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I use music and mantras that transform my thoughts from the negative to the positive. If I'm thinking the world is a horrible place, I can transform my life by saying, 'I won't give up', 'I won't worry my life away' and 'I won't hesitate no more', using these lyrics to change my experience. That is, I believe, what makes me seem like a positive person.
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I don't follow any of what the pop world is doing. Sometimes I feel like that's a weakness, actually, that I'm too in my own bubble. But I'm really just interested in the inner journey. And pop is all about the exterior world, the material.
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For the first thirty years of my life I exercised very little, and I smoked cigarettes for ten or twelve years, and I ate junk food. And I began to see some elders in my community's health decline, and I didn't want that to happen to me.
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I had never made a record before, so I didn't know anything about it. I don't know anything about knobs, frequencies, tones.
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Paul McCartney and John Lennon would often write a song a day, so I have the same workmanlike philosophy.
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I was looking for inspiration. I found it in California. The weather was always great, and the majority of San Diego seemed to be youth-and if you weren't 21 and couldn't get into the clubs, you'd go to a coffeehouse and hang out.
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The studio and road both have their charms. The studio allows me to be a mad scientist and the tour lets me feel like James Bond.
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I ride a bicycle everywhere I go, the physical strength is obvious, but my mental strength and my capacity to love myself and to love others has definitely expanded. And that's the one thing I need the most in taking on a life of touring and a life of basically being with hundreds of people every day and not exhaust one's energy.
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My memory is not so good so my most memorable show is the last one I played. Songs are written with intention but they only emerge in the moment.
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When we all sing in unison - sing in harmony - things come to us on levels that are much deeper than can be seen by the naked eye. Much deeper than even our subconscious. Things are happening.
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You don't need a vacation when there's nothing to escape from.
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And when you're needing your space to do some navigating...I' ll be here patiently waiting to see what you find
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As things grew for me I felt like I was losing myself and wanted to stay true to myself as well. I didn't want to lose any connection I had with the audience. I felt small on a big stage and I felt like I was peaking generically to an audience.
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Performing live is like harvesting your crops and sharing your food with people.
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I just loved the power of positive thinking, letting yourself go.
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I think especially with the Internet and the amount of reality shows that are going on, there's no way to keep a secret anymore, so I try to let my project be as much as reality show as I can allow it to be.
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In my lifetime, I want to see humanity start being conscious of our waste, the things we buy, and how we can reuse and recycle things. I want people to live harmoniously with our planet. I hope everybody wakes up and appreciates life.
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I'm not a virtuoso on an instrument. You know, I'm not always singing in pitch. I laugh sometimes my way through the shows, but I'm an honest songwriter who's always tried to bring the audience with me on my journey in hopes that they see their own lives reflected in the work.
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I call it sacred geometry. When everything's just right and it feels really balanced, so that when it unfolds to the next part, you feel totally familiar and at ease within the song.
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In Buddhism, they say attachment to anything only leads to suffering. So when we laugh, it's our way of saying, 'I'm unattached to that.' You're tickled by it, it makes your lobes do something on their own. So humor is very important to me. I always take that to the stage first.
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You can turn off the sun, but im still ganna shine!
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Music is the weapon in the war against unhappiness.
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Just take it easy and celebrate the malleable reality. You see, nothing is ever at is seems, yeah this life is but a dream.
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I want to be surrounded by women, I want to be snuggled and cuddled and pampered.
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I love the sound of the wind in the trees and the song of the birds and the shuffle in the leaves of my many woodland friends.
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By the end of the writing process, which is about 80 songs per album, I look at the material and think, what's going to make a difference in someone's life.
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What I get on a yoga mat, and from a yoga teacher, has been more beneficial onstage than any other workshop I've ever done.
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When all of us are acknowledged as the human equals that we really are, there will be no space left for bullying. It will no longer be wrong to choose one thing over another.
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As an American citizen, one has to vote. If we don't vote, we're not doing our part. We'll become some sort of oligarchy.
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I had a gig in Sweden. There were thousands of people there, and when I launched into 'I'm Yours,' they were all singing along. It was as if I was singing the Swedish national anthem. I was stunned.
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I listened to the radio, so I was influenced by everyone from Michael Jackson to Milli Vanilli. But thankfully my dad had a collection of Cat Stevens albums while my mom was listening to jazz.
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I think our storytellers - our songwriters should be great storytellers, and they should be mountain climbers and explorers, because music is something that can cross all different borders.
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I'm actually no longer a strict vegan. I don't hang out in the cheese section - I don't even eat cheese. I don't drink milk. But every once in a while I'll have an egg. I'm going to eat eggs that come out of my next-door neighbor's farm, that's just the way it is.
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I've been making demos at home for many albums now. So over those years, I've learned how to record music, and I love being at home. I excel when I can make things at home.
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I try to acknowledge both the sacred and the silly in my work. That goes for the live show as well. If I find myself in my head or dwelling in seriousness, I think of my friends back home and how they'd be laughing at me.
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I'm trying to be more of a gentleman.
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I love getting to bounce around and explore so much. I love Scandinavia. I love Spain. It's so mystical and romantic, yet it's gritty.
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Surrender to life itself and you'll just be rewarded with so many things. And I've been rewarded so many times, in so many mysterious ways. So I have no reason to be disappointed with anything.
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Another year is fast approaching. Go be that starving artist you're afraid to be. Open up that journal and get poetic finally. Volunteer. Suck it up and travel. You were not born here to work and pay taxes. You were put here to be part of a vast organism to explore and create. Stop putting it off. The world has much more to offer than what's on 15 televisions at TGI Fridays. Take pictures. Scare people. Shake up the scene. Be the change you want to see in the world.
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You can turn off the sun, but I'm still gonna shine