I’m not one icon. I’m every icon. I’m an icon that is made out of all the colors on the palette at every time. I have no restrictions. No restrictions.

Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.

I’d always tried to resist playing the supervirility thing. I liked showing the vulnerability of age.

Writing is like a ‚lust,‘ or like ‚scratching when you itch.‘ Writing comes as a result of a very strong impulse, and when it does come, I, for one, must get it out.

It’s very unnatural to be someone for so many people. But of course it’s very nice.

The only certain freedom’s in departure.

By the sole fact of his entering into ‚Thought,‘ man represents something entirely singular and absolutely unique in the field of our experience. On a single planet, there could not be more than one centre of emergence for reflexion.

You’re just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do anyway. You’ve got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It’s all down to you, mate.

Every bad situation is a blues song waiting to happen.

A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.

I need drama in my life to keep making music.

Empire and liberty.

I sent American troops to Iraq to make its people free, not to make them American. Iraqis will write their own history and find their own way.

Then, when I’m in these relationships with people who are also creative, or creative in their own way, what happens is the attraction is initially there and it’s all unicorns and rainbows. And then they hate me.

Woman was God’s second mistake.

Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains.

The child in you, like all children, loves to laugh, to be around people who can laugh at themselves and life. Children instinctively know that the more laughter we have in our lives, the better.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.

Generally, a writer of force is anywhere from 20 years to 200 years ahead of his generation.

Anything that encourages people to pick up an instrument and play, I’m fully behind.

I’m not particularly a feminist, but if you get women off the animal cycle of reproduction and give them some say in how many children they’ll have, immediately the floor will rise.

Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.

Ideas have a short shelf life. You must act on them before the expiration date.

I think that by staying true to myself and making music from my heart, the blessings come.

I groan daily under a body of sin and corruption. Oh for the time when I shall drop this flesh, and be free from sin!

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.

There’s not some idea I’m going to create a work that’s going to change everybody’s consciousness.

The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay.

It’s very important to know the neighbor next door and the people down the street and the people in another race.

Ideas can be life-changing. Sometimes all you need to open the door is just one more good idea.

What we face may look insurmountable. But I learned something from all those years of training and competing. I learned something from all those sets and reps when I didn’t think I could lift another ounce of weight. What I learned is that we are always stronger than we know.

I’m a free spirit.

And as a writer, one of the things that I’ve always been interested in doing is actually invading your comfort space. Because that’s what we’re supposed to do. Get under your skin, and make you react.

I’m not who people expect me to be. I’m not Henry Kissinger.

In art, at a certain level, there is no ‚better than.‘ It’s just about trying to operate for yourself on the most supreme level, artistically, that you can and hoping that people get it. Trusting that, just because of the way people are built and how interconnected we are, greatness will translate and symmetry will be recognised.

If I have the chance to say something, I will say it – but that doesn’t obligate me to always say something, or to shed light on every problem, as if I were a lawmaker.

I think style is being so comfortable and confident in what you’re wearing. That’s what style is, ‚cause everybody’s got different style.

All great art is the work of the whole living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul.

Like anything else that happens on its own, the act of writing is beyond currency. Money is great stuff to have, but when it comes to the act of creation, the best thing is not to think of money too much. It constipates the whole process.

Music will never go away, and I will never stop making music; it’s just what capacity or what arena you decide to do it.

I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.

I always say this about my music, and music in general: Music is like a time capsule. Each album reflects what I’m going through or what’s going on in my life at that moment.

I subscribe to the myth that an artist’s creativity comes from torment. Once that’s fixed, what do you draw on?

A lot of people have said I’d have probably done better in my career if I hadn’t looked so cheap and gaudy. But I dress to be comfortable for me, and you shouldn’t be blamed because you want to look pretty.

We are all alike, on the inside.

If you give a person a fish, they’ll fish for a day. But if you train a person to fish, they’ll fish for a lifetime.

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.

Where globalization means, as it so often does, that the rich and powerful now have new means to further enrich and empower themselves at the cost of the poorer and weaker, we have a responsibility to protest in the name of universal freedom.

Like Frank Sinatra, I’m doing it my way.

Thirty-three-years-old, still creating art. It’s rage, it’s creativity, it’s pain, it’s hurt, but it’s the opportunity to still have my voice get out there through music.

I remember being in Japan when Destiny’s Child put out ‚Independent Women,‘ and women there were saying how proud they were to have their own jobs, their own independent thinking, their own goals. It made me feel so good, and I realized that one of my responsibilities was to inspire women in a deeper way.

I had to resign myself, many years ago, that I’m not too articulate when it comes to explaining how I feel about things. But my music does it for me, it really does.

When you realize who you live for, and who’s important to please, a lot of people will actually start living. I am never going to get caught up in that. I’m gonna look back on my life and say that I enjoyed it – and I lived it for me.

Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.

You learn that there’s no right way to do it, no wrong way to do it. It’s just what you feel comfortable with, to trust that, and don’t let anybody box you in to a certain style of parenting or make you feel a certain way about what your kids do.

You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.

I personally have always been in favor of people who are gay being permitted to marry legally – and I still feel that way.

If you raise your children to feel that they can accomplish any goal or task they decide upon, you will have succeeded as a parent and you will have given your children the greatest of all blessings.

A toddling little girl is a centre of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other.

Many interviewers when they come to talk to me, think they’re being progressive by not mentioning in their stories any longer that I’m black. I tell them, ‚Don’t stop now. If I shot somebody you’d mention it.‘