Ultimately, I’m not doing that much. I’m only doing what a human being who feels wants to do – in my way, without stepping out of my flow, while staying in my lane. Without, I guess, boring people.

I love making music. That’s what I love to do. So I don’t feel like there’s any need to take a break unless I want to.

Deeply earnest and thoughtful people stand on shaky footing with the public.

The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.

Life is not living in the suburbs with a white picket fence. That’s not life. Somehow our American culture has made it out that that’s what life needs to be – and that if it’s not that, it’s all screwed up. It’s not.

Men shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear.

What people see on court is another side of me; it’s not me.

Because we’re actors we can pretend and fake it, but I’d rather the intimate investment was authentic.

If I’m in a bad mood, or if I’m uncomfortable, it’s probably what I’m wearing that’s making me feel that way.

Singing aloud leaves you with a sense of levity and contentedness.

I’m entirely interested in people, and also other creatures and beings, but especially in people, and I tend to read them by emotional field more than anything. So I have a special interest in what they’re thinking and who they are and who’s hiding behind those eyes and how did he get there, and what’s the story, really?

I can’t pretend that I’m brave and that I can beat the whole world.

I don’t tell anyone how to write and no one tells me.

It seems to me that terrestrial beings, as they become more autonomous, psychologically richer, shut themselves up in a way against one another, and at the same time gradually become strangers to the cosmic environment and currents, impenetrable to one another, and incapable of exteriorizing themselves.

The hardest thing for – not only an artist but for anybody to do is look themselves in the mirror and acknowledge, you know, their own flaws and fears and imperfections and put them out there in the open for people to relate to it.

One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals. And so when I hear about negative and false attacks, I really don’t invest any energy in them, because I know who I am.

The body is meant to be seen, not all covered up.

It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent.

When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinxlike.

I am criticised for not celebrating my goals enough. I am very happy from within, very calm. I just don’t celebrate. I celebrate inside.

I wanted to write.

I don’t really have a gimmick or a ‚thing.‘ I’m one of the few artists who gets to be himself every day.

‚Tis strange what a man may do, and a woman yet think him an angel.

It’s a representation of yourself, and you can express a lot of your creativity with what your wearing.

My thing is this; if I’m sick enough to think it, then I’m sick enough to say it.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

One of the most mawkish of human delusions is the notion that friendship should be eternal, or, at all events, life-long, and that any act which puts a term to it is somehow discreditable.

When I was making the early stuff, I never expected it to be so big. I was in my own kind of bubble. I never wanted to tour; I just wanted to create music and make a diary I could put out into the world. And sometimes, I became the characters.

I never think of myself as an icon. What is in other people’s minds is not in my mind. I just do my thing.

Being too good is apt to be uninteresting.

I mean, what would I be doing if I couldn’t write? But that fortunately hasn’t proved to be the case and I can read any day. I still read a lot, and I can write any day, but much more slowly and fewer words.

Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.

I don’t do things for the response or for the controversy. I just live my life.

There is only one failure in life possible, and that is not to be true to the best one knows.

I talk about myself in the third person all the time. I don’t live my life in the way someone like you does. I live my life completely serving only my work and my fans.

While physics and mathematics may tell us how the universe began, they are not much use in predicting human behavior because there are far too many equations to solve. I’m no better than anyone else at understanding what makes people tick, particularly women.

I pay attention to lyrics and I know what rap fans care about. I try to write for the average listener and I’m conscious of the mainstream without selling out.

Whatever I am, it’s natural… I don’t have to pretend to be aggressive, don’t have to show the opposition that I am on the field. Being aggressive comes naturally to me, helps me perform.

I wish I could shut up, but I can’t, and I won’t.

I want you to be everything that’s you, deep at the center of your being.

These poems, with all their crudities, doubts, and confusions, are written for the love of Man and in praise of God, and I’d be a damn‘ fool if they weren’t.

One of the things you’re doing when you make art, apart from entertaining yourself and other people, is trying to see what ways of working feel good, what feels right.

I know where I’m going and I know the truth, and I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be what I want.

I’m an expert typist. I learned in high school. I would close my eyes and just type without worrying about mistakes. I tried to penetrate my heart, and as I let my thoughts drift, things bubbled up to the surface.

I’ve seen firsthand that being president doesn’t change who you are. It reveals who you are.

Rap was more of a release for me, a journal.

I don’t have to show anything to anyone. There is nothing to prove.

I write because writing is something that I have to do. And it doesn’t matter whether people like it or not. When I write, I feel the pressure and anxiety that come with taking an empty piece of paper and trying to fill it with something from your own consciousness.

I do not think psychoanalysis has a scientific basis. If we can’t explain why a cockroach decides to turn left, how can we explain why a human being decides to do something?

People often think I’m a faker, but I’m usually honest, in a certain way – in such a way that often nobody believes me!

If you want to get each individual’s honest opinion, you don’t want that opinion to be influenced by others who are present, much less allow a group to coordinate what they are going to say.

At Sarah Lawrence, I realized that everybody was already what they were going to be. The painters were painting, the writers writing, the dancers dancing. And nobody wore any makeup. The art was uppermost.

True glory takes root, and even spreads; all false pretences, like flowers, fall to the ground; nor can any counterfeit last long.

It’s hard to practice compassion when we’re struggling with our authenticity or when our own worthiness is off-balance.

Anything I’ve ever said, I certainly was feeling at the time.

I know some people might think it odd – unworthy even – for me to have written a cookbook, but I make no apologies. The U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins thought I had demeaned myself by writing poetry for Hallmark Cards, but I am the people’s poet so I write for the people.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

I think humans are just hard-wired to process people’s faces and understand meaning and expression at such a more granular level than other types of communication.

Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.

I live halfway between reality and theater at all times. And I was born this way.

I’m here to spread a message of hope. Follow your heart. Don’t follow what you’ve been told you’re supposed to do.