Bruno Mars

“My demo was terrible, I sounded like a chipmunk. I was so young.”

“When it's your time, it is your time.”

“You know, I just do whatever feels right to me! And so that's what you're gonna get!”

“I just write songs that I strongly believe in and that are coming from inside. There's no tricks. It's honesty with big melodies.”

“In Hawaii, some of the biggest radio stations are reggae. The local bands are heavily influenced by Bob Marley.”

“I think that success is having fun.”

“What I'm hoping is that every album I'm going to do will give my audience something different, and that they'll grow as I do.”

“Writing for other artists helped me figure out that magic you have to capture to make everyone connect with a song.”

“I could sing you a thousand and one doo-wop songs. I love the simplicity in that music. It's not super-poetic, it's just from the heart.”

“Easy come, easy go,That's just how you live, oh,Take, take, take it all,But you never give.Should've known you was troubleFrom the first kiss,Had your eyes wide open.Why were they open?Gave you all I had and you tossed it in the trash,You tossed it in the trash, you did.To give me all your love is all I ever asked, 'causeWhat you don't understand isI'd catch a grenade for yaThrow my hand on a blade for yaI'd jump in front of a train for ya You know I'd do anything for yaOh, oh, I would go through all of this pain,Take a bullet straight through my brain!Yes, I would die for ya, baby,But you won't do the same.”

“I grew up listening to the Police, I grew up performing in bars, singing Police songs.”

“Everyone calls me Bruno; they don't ever call me Peter - that was just my government name.”

“I've learned people are watching, so don't do nothing stupid.”

“I don't throw lavish parties or nothing like that - I just want a bed and a TV.”

“I can't even speak Hawaiian, but if you go there and listen to a Hawaiian song, you get captured because it's so beautiful, like the melody is just gorgeous and you know Bob Marley is on the radio every single day. It's very reggae-influenced down there. Basically, you haven't been to paradise if you haven't been to Hawaii.”

“Becoming famous was never what I wanted to do. There's a lot of things that come with fame - it's what people in the limelight have to do.”

“My dad was into the 1950s doo-wop era. If you look at those groups, or at James Brown, Jackie Wilson and the Temptations in the 1960s, you'll see you had to be sharp onstage.”

“My father moved to Hawaii from Brooklyn and my mother came there as a child from the Philippines. They met at a show where my dad was playing percussion. My mom was a hula dancer.”

“A grown man should always carry cash, right? I don't know who told me, but someone told me that a long time ago, and the biggest turnoff is when a guy doesn't have cash on him.”

“In my songs, I'm not saying something that's never been said before. The have lyrics aren't going to blow people away. It's the emotion and the melody that drive it home.”