I don’t see myself as a pop artist. Like, when you hear ‚pop,‘ you’re like, ‚Oh, bubblegum, jumpy little girly stuff,‘ and I feel like, ‚Uh-uh. That’s not me.‘

When I was writing the Destiny’s Child songs, it was a big thing to be that young and taking control. And the label at the time didn’t know that we were going to be that successful, so they gave us all control. And I got used to it.

Eventually you get to this point where you understand what you want to do and get across and sound like.

I’m not who people expect me to be. I’m not Henry Kissinger.

I’m definitely a Polaroid camera girl. For me, what I’m really excited about is bringing back the artistry and the nature of Polaroid.

I’m an expert typist. I learned in high school. I would close my eyes and just type without worrying about mistakes. I tried to penetrate my heart, and as I let my thoughts drift, things bubbled up to the surface.

All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.

Painting is an infinitely minute part of my personality.

My body is quite tiny, but a lot of the emotions I feel are pretty explosive. They have to come out.

I wear the national dress because it is the most natural and the most becoming for an Indian.

I enjoy wearing pins, and nobody tells me to do it.

Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?

You can be a rank insider as well as a rank outsider.

The wage for most musicians is a modest amount, and that includes me some of the time.

I didn’t come to Hollywood. Hollywood came to me. A lot of people wish they could say the things I say. Everyone out here is so phony, it’s sickening.

Looking at 2014, I look back: we made more money off ‚Mailbox Money‘ than we would have made off taking an advance from anybody. We made more money letting our fans buy the stuff directly from us than what any label could have offered us.

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.

I think I lived those years very impersonally. It was almost as though I had erected someone outside myself who was the president’s wife. I was lost somewhere deep down inside myself. That is the way I felt and worked until I left the White House.

For some reason, I’m really comfortable talking about my personal life in songs.

We don’t have to let extremists define us.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m as famous for my wheelchair and disabilities as I am for my discoveries.

Like a pianist runs her fingers over the keys, I’ll search my mind for what to say. Now, the poem may want you to write it. And then sometimes you see a situation and think, ‚I’d like to write about that.‘ Those are two different ways of being approached by a poem, or approaching a poem.

My whole life is a theater piece.

I’m the type person, my safe place to be emotional is the booth.

I always try to be myself. Ever since I was an introverted kid, I’d get on stage and be able to break out of my shell.

Michael Jordan changed so much in basketball, he took his power to make a difference. It’s so much going on in music right now and somebody has to make a difference.

Men who think that a woman’s past love affairs lessen her love for them are usually stupid and weak.

How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.

‚They‘ is… stay away from them, please. There is so many different definitions of ‚they.‘ You might have a personal ‚they.‘ They against you; they want you broken and miserable. They don’t like winners; they don’t like people who’s blessed. So everybody’s got a different ‚they.‘

I find only freedom in the realms of eccentricity.

I think women want to take care of themselves, and I think having a voice in how that is done is very important.

There’s Madeleine, and then there’s ‚Madeleine Albright‘. And I sometimes kind of think, who is this person? Once you become ‚Madeleine Albright‘ it doesn’t go away.

The question isn’t, ‚What do we want to know about people?‘, It’s, ‚What do people want to tell about themselves?‘

I mean, what would I be doing if I couldn’t write? But that fortunately hasn’t proved to be the case and I can read any day. I still read a lot, and I can write any day, but much more slowly and fewer words.

My affection for Taiwan… is witnessed by everyone. My wife is Taiwanese and I am a son-in-law of Taiwan. I am half Taiwanese.

I am criticised for not celebrating my goals enough. I am very happy from within, very calm. I just don’t celebrate. I celebrate inside.

Pessimism is a luxury that a Jew can never allow himself.

The best thing is to always keep honest people around, because when you have a bunch of yes men around that know that you’re making a mistake but let you go on with it, that’s when it ruins your mind state as an artist.

I’ve never been shy or secretive with the fact that if you walk into my life, you may be walking onto a record.

A poem is a naked person… Some people say that I am a poet.

I once wanted to prove myself by being a great actress. Now I want to prove that I’m a person. Then maybe I’ll be a great actress.

When I’m in the studio, I’m looking for creativity I haven’t matched yet, a feeling I haven’t felt. It’s a high.

Music will never go away, and I will never stop making music; it’s just what capacity or what arena you decide to do it.

I’ve always done whatever I want and always been exactly who I am.

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

There are some people who need to wear a label round their necks to show that they are Christians at all, or else we might mistake them for sinners, their actions are so like those of the ungodly.

Singing aloud leaves you with a sense of levity and contentedness.

Only Americans can hurt America.

I’ve been asked this question so many times, do you feel you need to write a book for adults? No, I don’t need to write a book for adults.

The power of our thoughts may never be measured or appreciated, but it became obvious to me as a young boy that there was value and power in being aware of my thoughts and how I expressed myself.

I am attracted to people who make this effort in knowing what suits them – they are individual and stylish.

I was ready to quit music. It felt to me like music equalled death.

I think Ye is important to hip-hop.

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

Style is that which indicates how the writer takes himself and what he is saying. It is the mind skating circles around itself as it moves forward.

Public behavior is merely private character writ large.

I think people should feel encouraged to be themselves.

My apartment is my stage, and my bedroom is my stage – they’re just not stages you’re allowed to see.

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.

The myths underlying our culture and underlying our common sense have not taught us to feel identical with the universe, but only parts of it, only in it, only confronting it – aliens.

The working men, I’ll go by and they’ll whistle. At first they whistle because they think, ‚Oh, it’s a girl. She’s got blond hair and she’s not out of shape,‘ and then they say, ‚Gosh, it’s Marilyn Monroe!‘