Art is never finished, only abandoned.

Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I’ll show you someone who has overcome adversity.

The good part about youngsters is that they are so fearless. You want to be like them.

Art was, seriously, the only thing I’d ever wanted to own. It has always been for me a stable nourishment. I use it. It can change the way that I feel in the mornings.

People respond when you tell them there is a great future in front of you, you can leave your past behind.

And the idea of just wandering off to a cafe with a notebook and writing and seeing where that takes me for awhile is just bliss.

Life is a song to me.

Ambition can creep as well as soar.

There is that in the glance of a flower which may at times control the greatest of creation’s braggart lords.

It’s not easy to define poetry.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.

Somebody once asked me what my theory of life was, and I said, ‚Don’t try.‘ That fits the writing, too. I don’t try; I just type.

There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life.

There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.

Deep down, I know I have this intuition or instinct that a lot of creative people have, that their demons are also what make them create.

I enjoy being involved in making the artwork for albums and stupid stuff like that.

My purpose is to make exciting music, and I feel like I’ll be doing that for the rest of my life, so there’s no pressure.

I’m not interested in possible complexities. I regard song structure as a graph paper.

The best author will be the one who is ashamed to become a writer.

Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.

We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.

No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time a steady eye.

One science only will one genius fit; so vast is art, so narrow human wit.

Art is the proper task of life.

Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.

My dad always said, ‚Champ, the measure of a man is not how often he is knocked down, but how quickly he gets up.‘

I wake up every day inspiring myself, because God gave me life.

I love the song ‚I Hope You Dance‘ by Lee Ann Womack. I was going to write that song, but someone beat me to it.

I feel like in my music I can be a rebel. I can say things I wouldn’t say in real life.

I think there’s a lot of similarity between what people try to do with religion with what they want from art. In fact, I very specifically think that they are same thing. Not that religion and art are the same, but that they both tap into the same need we have for surrender.

There is nothing that makes its way more directly into the soul than beauty.

I try to do the fancy things out there by going with both hands, making crossover moves, and having a certain creativity and flair to my game.

I leave the genre labeling to other people. I really do. If I were to think too hard about it, that would stifle you creatively. If you think too hard about who other people want you to be as an artist, it stops you from being who you want to be as an artist.

I can make something magical and wonderful out of nothing.

I get up every morning and say, ‚Father, give me strength today, not strength so I can lift 500 pounds, but give me strength, Lord, so when I speak, my words might motivate, might inspire somebody, Lord, when they see me, let them see you. When they hear me, Lord, let them hear you. In your holy name I pray.‘

Actions are the seed of fate deeds grow into destiny.

The concept of commercialism in the fashion and art world is looked down upon. You know, just to think, ‚What amount of creativity does it take to make something that masses of people like?‘ And, ‚How does creativity apply across the board?‘

Being an artist doesn’t just mean you have a song. That doesn’t make you an artist. The word ‚artist‘ means so many different things, and I feel like to be a real one, you really have to do it all. The people that I think of as artists – Tyler the Creator, Childish Gambino, Kanye West – are doing the most.

It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.

It’s all make believe, isn’t it?

Music is not math. It’s science. You keep mixing the stuff up until it blows up on you, or it becomes this incredible potion.

The more you practice, the better you get, the more freedom you have to create.

Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.

For instance, I’m always fascinated to see whether, given the kind of fairly known and established form called popular music, whether there is some magic combination that nobody has hit upon before.

You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

I think writing really helps you heal yourself. I think if you write long enough, you will be a healthy person. That is, if you write what you need to write, as opposed to what will make money, or what will make fame.

I believe in sketching because there is something very sensitive in sketching, you know, in sketches that you don’t have out of a computer that looks the same like everybody even if, later on, the dresses are OK, but I like to sketch, and I like to see trails made after my sketches that look the same. It is you know, what I like.

If an idea isn’t exciting, you shouldn’t do it.

Live to learn, and you will really learn to live.

I push myself in a lot of aspects when I write a song. I write a piece and where most people would stop and say, ‚Oh, that’s the hook right there,‘ I’ll move that to the first four bars of the verse and do a new hook.

When I have a terrible need of – shall I say the word – religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.

I intend to inspire people with my story: motivate young people that grew up like myself, or even not like myself. Just, you know, go through the human experience.

An idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at all.

I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow.

A lot of my rhymes are just to get chuckles out of people. Anybody with half a brain is going to be able to tell when I’m joking and when I’m serious.

I tell my fellow reggaetoneros, keep giving it your all and bring more creativity.