I didn’t think it was special to be able to sing.

I’ve been careful in love. I’ve been careless in love. And I’ve had adventures I wouldn’t trade for anything.

Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken.

It’s important to love in hip hop.

I don’t ever want to come out with something safe and get away with, ‚It sounds good!‘ It’s got to be more than sounding good. The music I like are events.

Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.

My songwriting is like extending a hand to the listener.

I don’t know anything about music. In my line you don’t have to.

I think I’ve committed the one really bad English crime, which is I’ve risen above my station. I was supposed to be a pop star, and suddenly I’m claiming that I’m an artist of some kind.

We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay – and rise!

Little things affect little minds.

I’m not suggesting people abandon musical instruments and start playing their cars and apartments, but I do think the reign of music as a commodity made only by professionals might be winding down.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man’s features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them.

Vulnerability is the birthplace of connection and the path to the feeling of worthiness. If it doesn’t feel vulnerable, the sharing is probably not constructive.

Beware of no man more than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us.

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.

I don’t think a song should be put in a category.

However, there’s no theme or concept behind Heathen, just a number of songs but somehow there is a thread that runs through it that is quite as strong as any of my thematic type albums.

My fans love me for me, my beats, my rhymes.

The greatest mistake we make is living in constant fear that we will make one.

Success is like reaching an important birthday and finding you’re exactly the same.

See, when you drive home today, you’ve got a big windshield on the front of your car. And you’ve got a little bitty rearview mirror. And the reason the windshield is so large and the rearview mirror is so small is because what’s happened in your past is not near as important as what’s in your future.

I put my flaws on front street. So the world accepted my flaws, so I don’t have any flaws.

Remember, always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember, others may hate you. But those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.

You know, it’s not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself.

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

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.

Knowledge cultivates your seeds and does not sow in your seeds.

People – especially white people – they want me to be a role model just because of the life I lead. The things I say in my songs, they expect it of me.

I can hold my own when it comes to burping. I’ve got a good feeling that I could win a championship.

I’m a big believer in doing things that make you uncomfortable. So, we live in a world where we want to be as comfortable as we can. And we wonder why we have no growth. We wonder why – when the smallest thing in our life gets difficult – we wonder why we cower and we run away.

No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.

Deficiency motivation doesn’t work. It will lead to a life-long pursuit of try to fix me. Learn to appreciate what you have and where and who you are.

If I’m gonna write songs about my exes, they can write songs about me. That’s how it works.

Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.

Nearly all the things I do that are of any merit at all start off just being good fun, and I think I’m sort of building up to doing something else quite soon.

It’s a philosophy of life. A practice. If you do this, something will change, what will change is that you will change, your life will change, and if you can change you, you can perhaps change the world.

I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.

I don’t think I’d ever apologise for music I make, no.

You create a community with music, not just at concerts but by talking about it with your friends.

Music is the melody whose text is the world.

Dropkick Murphys get me going, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana… plus, all the regular hip-hop stuff.

One mustn’t close one’s eyes to difficulty and to shortcomings; the more one recognizes them, the less they upset one.

There are very few people who are going to look into the mirror and say, ‚That person I see is a savage monster;‘ instead, they make up some construction that justifies what they do.

When I left the University of Notre Dame, I honestly felt I would never coach again.

I change my mind a lot. I usually don’t agree with what I say very much. I’m an awful liar.

Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.

I would like to do a duet with Taylor Hanson, because I have loved Hanson since I was 8.

I just wanted to be a songwriter. I did really not like the sound of my own voice.

When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.

My freshman and sophomore years in high school, I spent a lot of time trying to get back on the right track. I was arrested multiple times by the time I was 16, so I had a little harder time trying to adjust like a lot of us do in high school.

Not what I have, but what I do is my kingdom.

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.

Music is like film to me.

I realize I don’t do a very good job in keeping up to date, but I try to.

Every seven years, I sit down and make a whole new plan.

Ever since I was a kid, this was all I wanted to do. I’ve wanted to do music. I wanted to sing. It’s all I know.

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

I’m like a recovering perfectionist. For me it’s one day at a time.

My songs are like my children – I expect them to support me when I’m old.