I don’t compare myself to anyone else; I don’t make comments about anyone else because they do what feels right for them, and that’s okay by me.

What’s wrong with being a boring kind of guy?

I continue to care for President Obama and for his family. I think that in many ways they are very courageous people, and I honor that, because I know what it means to live as a black person in a racist America.

Nobody looks like they did when they were 20, so why not take advantage of the fact that you’re changing, emotionally as well as physically?

If you have fear, you are bound by tradition, you follow some leader or guru. When you are bound by tradition, when you are afraid of your husband or your wife, you lose your dignity as an individual human being.

I have noticed… that men usually leave married women alone and are inclined to treat all wives with respect. This is no great credit to married women.

Among physicists, I’m respected I hope.

Take me seriously. Take me and my role seriously. Take my talent seriously.

People who truly understand what is meant by self-reliance know they must live their lives by ethics rather than rules.

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

I thank God I’m myself and for the life I’m given to live and for friends and lovers and beloveds, and I thank God for knowing that all those people have already paid for me.

You’re in pretty good shape for the shape you are in.

In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.

Self-worth comes from one thing – thinking that you are worthy.

I’m very definitely a woman and I enjoy it.

Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.

No man was ever great by imitation.

There are certain things that bother me and certain things that don’t. Personal attacks on me? I think I’m just so used to it.

Personality is everything in art and poetry.

America’s promises do not come with a price tag. We meet our commitments. We bear our burdens. That’s one of the reasons why almost every country on Earth sees America as stronger and more respected today than they did eight years ago when I took office.

The best things and best people rise out of their separateness; I’m against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.

Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.

I’m afraid that everything will get homogenized and be the same.

Respect the burden.

I’m fat, but I’m thin inside… there’s a thin man inside every fat man.

Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.

When the dog looks at you, the dog is not thinking what kind of a person you are. The dog is not judging you.

If the standard transsexual person wants to be regarded as he or she, my sense is I’ll address you according to the part that you appear to be playing.

Don’t feel sorry for me.

To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.

I change during the course of a day. I wake and I’m one person, and when I go to sleep I know for certain I’m somebody else.

It is better to do one’s own duty, however defective it may be, than to follow the duty of another, however well one may perform it. He who does his duty as his own nature reveals it, never sins.

I do get recognized, but I must say Edinburgh is a fantastic city to live if you’re well-known. There is an innate respect for privacy in Edinburgh people, and I also think they’re used to seeing me walking around, so I don’t think I’m a very big deal.

It’s absolutely normal that different human beings want to go different ways.

Just because something didn’t work out your way, or somebody disappointed you, that does not change who you are.

The snow goose need not bathe to make itself white. Neither need you do anything but be yourself.

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.

It is only a man’s own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them. For it is these that he really and completely understands. To read the thoughts of others is like taking the remains of someone else’s meal, like putting on the discarded clothes of a stranger.

Stop this attitude that older people ain’t any good anymore! We’re as good as we ever were – if we ever were any good.

My philosophy is it’s none of my business what people say of me and think of me. I am what I am, and I do what I do. I expect nothing and accept everything. And it makes life so much easier.

I think the healthy way to live is to make friends with the beast inside oneself, and that means not the beast but the shadow. The dark side of one’s nature. Have fun with it and you know, is to accept everything about ourselves.

My style has always been my own, just like my flow and style.

Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best.

Happiness can exist only in acceptance.

We human beings are strange creatures and still reserve the right to think for ourselves.

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

Men are so willing to respect anything that bores them.

Hip-hop is ever changing but you’ll always have the pack. And you’ll always have those people who are separated from the pack.

Freedom is relative.

First, I want to pay tribute to Diana myself. She was an exceptional and gifted human being. In good times and bad, she never lost her capacity to smile and laugh, nor to inspire others with her warmth and kindness. I admired and respected her – for her energy and commitment to others, and especially for her devotion to her two boys.

It’s my old girl that advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained.

The most important thing I can tell you about aging is this: If you really feel that you want to have an off-the-shoulder blouse and some big beads and thong sandals and a dirndl skirt and a magnolia in your hair, do it. Even if you’re wrinkled.

Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.

I don’t believe in guilt; I believe in living on impulse as long as you never intentionally hurt another person. And don’t judge people in your life. I think you should live completely free.

My goal is just to be respected as a man when I walk down the street with my family. I don’t care what your job is, you’re not gonna talk down to me, you’re not gonna try to get a rise out of me. I’m a man first. And in establishing that, some interesting things have happened.

I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.

As a songwriter, you respect and appreciate the writings of other people, and I often get asked, are there songs out there I wish I’d written? Yes. There’s many of them!

I think all documentaries leave out areas of people’s lives. Which is good. There are areas that need not be explored.

I periodically realize every few years that the only person whose taste I really trust is me.

In hip-hop, there’s not a lot of love. There’s not a lot of love being spread. It’s always like ‚I’m stuntin‘ on you raps, or I’m better than you raps.‘ It’s not a lot of ‚Yo man, I idolize you raps.‘

I don’t have a type. I don’t have a specific kind of human being. It’s just kind of an X-factor of sorts. Everybody I’ve ever dated has been a case-by-case situation.