I love music and musicians. And seeing great artists dropped from labels was really frustrating and sad to me.

And it's sad because it's like a surprise to people - almost an anomaly - when artists are actually refined and trained on an instrument. That's the last thing people think about.

I think Paris smells not just sweet but melancholy and curious, sometimes sad but always enticing and seductive. She's a city for the all senses, for artists and writers and musicians and dreamers, for fantasies, for long walks and wine and lovers and, yes, for mysteries.

I tend to look out for things with a resonance to my youth - artists or objects that seemed romantic all those years ago. I never buy anything purely for its value. I like possessions that smile back at me.

I absolutely love Ireland. It's one of the most beautiful places on Earth, and I have strong ties here. Both my grandmothers are from Ireland, and I have spent every summer in Bantry since my father, who is an artist, had the romantic idea 20 years ago to buy an old farmhouse on the west coast and renovate it.

I hate to sound like a romantic adolescent, but I believe artists don't generally see art as a career choice; they simply can't overcome their desire to make art, and will live on little income for as long as they have to, before they start to sell their work - or give up and get a paying job.

As a young woman, I had been seeking experience, knowledge, truth, the stuff writers need in their work, but when the artist actually kicked in, I came to understand that in this romantic relationship I was not free to be myself, or to find myself, in order to begin the true work I needed to do.

People expect me to be dark and gloomy, then write that I'm a jolly chap, and after all, that is what I am. I think it's a case of an absolute romantic naivety that there should be a parallel between the work and the artist.

When I start to write, words have become physical presence. It was to see if I could bring that private world to life that found its first expression through reading. I really dislike the romantic notion of the artist.

As a kid I quite fancied the romantic, Bohemian idea of being an artist. I expect I thought I could escape from the difficulties of maths and spelling. Maybe I thought I would avoid the judgement of the establishment.

Romantic art deals with the exception and with the individual. Good people, belonging as they do to the normal, and so, commonplace type, are artistically uninteresting.

Somehow, the French got this idea of the starving artist. Very romantic, except it's not so romantic for the starving artist.

The most aggressive artists often hide their romantic side.

Me personally, I will always be a fan at the end of the day. No matter how big this gets, I still look up to other artists and people I respect creatively.

Questlove is an artist who I respect because he constantly shifts within the idiom, challenging perceptions of hip-hop and black American culture.

I've always believed that getting respect as an artiste is of utmost importance.

I want to invite the mainstream into my world and to my sound and to what I'm doing. And I want mainstream artists to respect me and accept Latino artists as equals without us having to sing in English. I want them to know that I can compete globally, with whomever, in Spanish.

I just respect Kanye as an artist.

One thing that I do want to say is Drake, as an artist, anybody has to respect him. He's in the game, and he's been in the game - he has longevity, even if he doesn't write or writes his music.

I've learned over the years that you're going to be most successful at the things you're most excited to do. Every artist has a special set of tools. When you really use those tools, and you make yourself feel really good about the product you create, I think you'll find an audience for it. I've been very fortunate in that respect.

The big pay-off was to work as an artist and gain some shred of respect from your friends, who were also artists. But there was never any notion that you could make a living out of art. On the rare occasions you had a gallery show, and sold a little work, well, that was just gravy.

Real talent is mixing realism with bluff. Every great artist I really respect has a certain amount of bluff; sooner or later you have to be a conjurer, and conjure images.

Every hip-hop artist I have worked with has a respect for higher power, whether that's church, Allah, or any sort of higher being - they all have a humbleness.

It's a funny relationship that makeup artists have. I always feel kind of like a dentist. People look at me and think of pain.