I always had faith in my creative capacity.

Memories are the key not to the past, but to the future.

Hair is about when you’re younger. I am my hair.

I do the very best I know how – the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.

What inspires me about rap is that it’s written in an almost poetic way. I just think it’s so cool.

When we speak of faith – the faith that can move mountains – we are not speaking of faith in general but of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

If every choice you make comes from an honest place, you’re solid, and nothing anybody can say about you can rock you or change your opinion.

I’m one of the world’s most self-conscious people. I really have to struggle.

When I was growing up, there was nobody in my family – not even my mother – who I could look to and be like, ‚I know you’ve never said anything homophobic.‘ So, you know, you worry about people in the business who you’ve heard talk that way. Some of my heroes coming up talk recklessly like that.

Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.

I don’t believe in ‚thinking‘ old. Although I’ve transitioned through many bodies – a baby, toddler, child, teen, young adult, mid-life and older adult – my spirit is unchanged. I support my body with exercise, my mind with reading and writing, and my spirit with the knowing that I am part of the Divine source of all life.

We cannot learn men from books.

I have never been able to renounce the light, the pleasure of being, and the freedom in which I grew up.

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.

I use my celebrity status to inspire someone, to give them hope.

For just when ideas fail, a word comes in to save the situation.

A leader is a dealer in hope.

I was becoming post-ideological.

Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning.

One often makes music to supplement one’s world.

Everything I read about hitting a midlife crisis was true. I had such a struggle letting go of youthful things and learning how to exist and have enthusiasm while settling into the comfort of an older age.

Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.

Neil Young is my hero, and such a great example. You know what that guy has been doing for the past 40 years? Making music. That’s what that guy does. Sometimes you pay attention, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes he hands it to you, sometimes he keeps it to himself. He’s a good man with a beautiful family and wonderful life.

I take inspiration from everyone and everything. I’m inspired by current champions, former champions, true competitors, people dedicated to their dream, hard workers, dreamers, believers, achievers.

Every human being is under construction from conception to death.

People have to go through trials and tribulations to get where they at. Do your thing – continue to rock it – because obviously, God wants you here.

Complaining is dangerous business. It can damage or even destroy your relationship with God, your relationships with other people, and even with your relationship with yourself.

You know, I look like a woman but I think like a man. And in this world of business, that has helped me a lot. Because by the time they think that I don’t know what’s goin‘ on, I then got the money, and gone.

As a kid from Compton, you can get all the success in the world and still question your worth.

I can’t usually stomach a project after I finish it, but for those days and weeks and months that it’s new to me, I do listen to it, and it might change over time, but it’s about function.

I am absolutely my own biggest critic.

No one has ever learned fully to know themselves.

I know I’m a good professional, I know that no one’s harder on me than myself and that’s never going to change, under any circumstances.

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.

I more fear what is within me than what comes from without.

If a person doesn’t change, there’s something really wrong with him.

Innovation has nothing to do with how many R & D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R & D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.

As long as you live, keep learning how to live.

If it weren’t for the Beatles, I would not be a musician.

I don’t want to make money; I want to make a difference.

I learned a long time ago the wisest thing I can do is be on my own side, be an advocate for myself and others like me.

You can’t have it all all at once. Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all, but in given periods in time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.

No one should be ashamed to admit he is wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

If you dream the proper dreams, and share the myths with people, they will want to grow up to be like you.

Growing old has been the greatest surprise of my life.

Before finding music, I didn’t have too many aspirations. I wanted to hang out, make a little money from whatever I had to do.

Bhai was my hero and he had immense influence on me.

We boil at different degrees.

I didn’t live at school, I lived where I could and studied what I enjoyed studying. I took what I wanted from that education but was making my first record at the same time. I don’t know anyone from school. I was just leading a different life. I was really interested in writing and other things.

Why, if someone is good in one field can they not be accepted or given the slightest opportunity to express and be creative in other fields?

When I have an idea, I turn down the flame, as if it were a little alcohol stove, as low as it will go. Then it explodes and that is my idea.

Without being the most confident person in the world, I think I am the right person for Liverpool.

I had the classic 40 meltdown. I did. It’s embarrassing. It was pretty funny. But then I recovered. To me, it was like a second adolescence. Hormonally, my body was changing, my mind was changing, and so my relationship to myself and the world around me came to this assault of finiteness.

If a woman possesses manly virtues one should run away from her; and if she does not possess them she runs away from herself.

Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain.

It no longer bothers me that I may be constantly searching for father figures; by this time, I have found several and dearly enjoyed knowing them all.

Yeah, I like to keep myself interested – I’ll kind of throw myself into some area that I don’t completely know or understand, that I’m not adept at, so I’m forced to swim in order to stay afloat. There’s a good feeling that comes from that.

Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.

A big ego means that you have some confidence in your abilities, really, and that you’re prepared to take the risk of trying them out.

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

Sadly, the truth is, there aren’t many people who can be put in high positions who won’t start thinking highly of themselves.