Dancing was always part of my culture growing up in Barbados. When I shot my 1st video I worked really hard with my choreographer to perfect the routines.

I decided to pursue music, so I dropped out of school and I told my parents I didn’t want any money from them. I got three jobs and I just hit the ground running.

No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive.

I’ve been known to have a good step or two. I’m half Samoan, you know, and part of our culture is singing and dancing daily.

Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays.

One must work and dare if one really wants to live.

In order to become prosperous, a person must initially work very hard, so he or she has to sacrifice a lot of leisure time.

I just like to have words that describe things correctly. Now to me, ‚black feminist‘ does not do that. I need a word that is organic, that really comes out of the culture, that really expresses the spirit that we see in black women. And it’s just… womanish.

If you ask the CEO of some major corporation what he does, he will say, in all honesty, that he is slaving 20 hours a day to provide his customers with the best goods or services he can and creating the best possible working conditions for his employees.

You shall, I question not, find a way to the top if you diligently seek for it; for nature hath placed nothing so high that it is out of the reach of industry and valor.

See, winners embrace hard work.

One of the huge imbalances in life is the disparity between your daily existence, with its routines and habits, and the dream you have within yourself of some extraordinarily satisfying way of living.

Whatever I’m feeling, whatever I’m going through, whatever mood I’m in… If I’m feeling like dancing or clubbing, then it will be reflected in the music. If I’m feeling dark and vulnerable, then it will reflect in the music, too.

All I have to say is basically if performing, singing, acting, and dancing is what you want to do, then you just have to do it – no matter where it is.

I just figured out that if I gave my all into this game – if I put everything into the fight business – then I would eventually run the fight business.

Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.

Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed – there’s so little competition.

There is precious little in civilization to appeal to a Yeti.

It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.

I happen to be a big fan of Western civilization; I think it beats the hell out of tyranny and starvation.

The Iraqis have become invested in their nationhood.

Our greatness has always come from people who expect nothing and take nothing for granted – folks who work hard for what they have, then reach back and help others after them.

For me, education has never been simply a policy issue – it’s personal. Neither of my parents and hardly anyone in the neighborhood where I grew up went to college. But thanks to a lot of hard work and plenty of financial aid, I had the opportunity to attend some of the finest universities in this country.

Tradition is the illusion of permanence.

There are plenty of people who are, I think, completely racist who love hip-hop.

Above all, this country is our own. Nobody has to get up in the morning and worry what his neighbors think of him. Being a Jew is no problem here.

Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.

Civilization is the making of civil persons.

I think I’ve got my business notions and my sense for that sort of thing from my dad. My dad never had a chance to go to school. He couldn’t read and write. But he was so smart. He was just one of those people that could just make the most of anything and everything that he had to work with.

All black Americans have slave names. They have white names; names that the slave master has given to them.

Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

What one has, one ought to use: and whatever he does he should do with all his might.

A lot of stuff I do out of pure obsessiveness.

I don’t have space to enter into the examples or the history of this, so I’m left with having to make the bold statement that culture is extinct.

I think it all comes down to motivation. If you really want to do something, you will work hard for it.

In art the best is good enough.

It’s important to love in hip hop.

A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.

I probably work harder, putting in a lot of time and effort, than a lot of drivers because all I think about, and all I do, is to do with racing, trying to make myself a better driver.

You can scream at me, call me for a shoot at midnight, keep me waiting for hours – as long as what ends up on the screen is perfect.

John Kerry believes in an America where hard work is rewarded.

Financial freedom is available to those who learn about it and work for it.

What’s fascinating is, people in Washington would rather spend time in Hollywood, and people in Hollywood would rather spend time in Washington.

A lot of dreams can turn to nightmares… if you don’t really work them.

Compton got such a legacy in hip-hop.

Talent without working hard is nothing.

I wish everyone well, but you need to focus on yourself. You need to stop putting your hand out. Everyone wants hand outs. Everyone wants things for free. You’ve got to put in the work. You’ve got to grind. You’ve got go through the struggle, and you’ve got to get it.

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.

Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.

The great moments of rock ‚n‘ roll were never off in some corner of the music world, in a self-constructed ghetto.

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.

I was asked to act when I couldn’t act. I was asked to sing ‚Funny Face‘ when I couldn’t sing, and dance with Fred Astaire when I couldn’t dance – and do all kinds of things I wasn’t prepared for. Then I tried like mad to cope with it.

The Mind that lies fallow but a single Day, sprouts up in Follies that are only to be killed by a constant and assiduous Culture.

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.

We live in a culture that relishes tearing others down. It’s ultimately more fulfilling, though, to help people reach their goals. Instead of feeling jealous, remember: If God did it for them, He can do it for you.

I’ve conducted the Boston Pops! Imagine that! Me! Maya Angelou! I’ve sang and danced at La Scala!

The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.

I have a lot of other stuff to accomplish before I get to kids. Whenever the time is right, I’ll just know. If I had a girl, she’d probably be really rebellious. She would be like a bundle of karma. I would love to bring them up in Barbados.

America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.

I’m my own worst critic, and if I don’t pull off what I think I wanted to do in my head, then I won’t be a happy girl.

Whatever I engage in, I must push inordinately.