I have not worked out my poems with a careful will, falling rather on haphazard and blind formulation of wordage, a more flowing concept, in a hope for a more new and lively path. I do personalize at times, but this only for the grace and elan of the dance.

Being a student of hip-hop in general, you take technical aspects from places. You may take a rhyme pattern or flow from Big Daddy Kane or Kool G Rap.

I’ve always written songs the same way. You learn different tricks – you learn craft, you learn structure, all that – as you go.

In acting, you have to pull from real-life situations, from people, to help develop a character.

We have art in order not to die of the truth.

While working on my first five books, I kept wishing I was writing a novel. I thought until you wrote a novel, you weren’t taken seriously as a writer. It used to trouble me a lot, but nothing troubles me now, and besides, there has been a change. I think short stories are taken more seriously now than they were.

You might win some, you might lose some. But you go in, you challenge yourself, you become a better man, a better individual, a better fighter.

I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can’t be done.

A man without a goal is like a ship without a rudder.

O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.

The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today.

All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.

Jane Austen is the pinnacle to which all other authors aspire.

Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervor.

Art is the proper task of life.

Having unlimited choices can paralyze you creatively.

I always rewrite each day up to the point where I stopped. When it is all finished, naturally you go over it. You get another chance to correct and rewrite when someone else types it, and you see it clean in type. The last chance is in the proofs. You’re grateful for these different chances.

Why, except as a means of livelihood, a man should desire to act on the stage when he has the whole world to act in, is not clear to me.

When you’re around me and really see that all I do is live and breathe for my work, it’s not strange, it’s just Gaga.

I used to take my short stories to girls‘ homes and read them to them. Can you imagine the reaction reading a short story to a girl instead of pawing her?

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.

For me, writing a song, I sit down and the process doesn’t really involve me thinking about the demographic of people I’m trying to hit or who I want to be able to relate to the song or what genre of music it falls under.

Thomas Jefferson once said, ‚We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.‘ And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.

‚Kiss Land‘ wasn’t about what people wanted to hear on the radio. It was the state of mind I was in – introverted, like David Cronenberg’s ‚Naked Lunch.‘ You didn’t know if you were hearing a chorus or a verse. It was just my thoughts.

Deep down, I know I have this intuition or instinct that a lot of creative people have, that their demons are also what make them create.

It’s not possible to advise a young writer because every young writer is so different. You might say, ‚Read,‘ but a writer can read too much and be paralyzed. Or, ‚Don’t read, don’t think, just write,‘ and the result could be a mountain of drivel.

I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.

The biggest problem with every art is by the use of appearance to create a loftier reality.

I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate.

Good jokes are gems. A good idea is hard to come by. I couldn’t give them to someone else, even for money. It just wouldn’t seem right.

Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence.

I’m inspired by people who keep on rolling, no matter their age.

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?

Everyone I look up to is bringing me into the tech world. You’d be surprised by all the music people in it, invested in it.

We must act out passion before we can feel it.

Actions are the seed of fate deeds grow into destiny.

Becoming an inspiration for kids is great. I want to inspire them to do whatever they want to.

It’s good to wander into the studio and walk out with something that’s better than you’d imagined it to be. If everything was as you imagined it to be, it just wouldn’t be as much fun.

Live out of your imagination, not your history.

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.

I’ve never been able to witness the birth of an idea. It seems as if one second, there’s nothing particularly going on, and the next second, something is there. It’s coming up out of my unconscious, up from places that I don’t even know where they are.

What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul.

I’ve never had writer’s block.

Write injuries in dust, benefits in marble.

In my younger days, I was trying to write sophisticated prose and fantastic stories.

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

A #2 pencil and a dream can take you anywhere.

It’s the way I study – to understand something by trying to work it out or, in other words, to understand something by creating it. Not creating it one hundred percent, of course; but taking a hint as to which direction to go but not remembering the details. These you work out for yourself.

As a kid, we would drive up and down 77 North – that’s our highway – there would be office buildings on the side of the highway and I’d be like, that’s what my house is going to look like when I get older. I’m going to start making my house look like this.

Diana Ross is a big inspiration to all of us. We all grew up watching everything about her – her mike placement, her grace, her style and her class.

I didn’t want to play it boring and safe. I also didn’t want to innovate too much. Second albums, man, they’re even scarier than first ones.

In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats – maybe it’s imperative that we encounter the defeats – but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. Human beings are more alike than unalike.

It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.

Snoop ain’t never cosigned me, but I know everybody is like, ‚That’s the next Snoop.‘ Nah, I’m Nipsey, and I got to work to define myself.

I’m interested in Jackson Pollock’s kind of art, where art is beautiful, but it’s nothing, and yet it’s incredible.

The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual.

Having listened to great songwriters like James Taylor and Carole King, I felt there was nothing new that was coming out that really represented me and the way I felt. So I started writing my own stuff.

My job is to bring out in people what they wouldn’t dare do themselves.

I don’t know what can be so dangerous about giving people hope. Causing people to have better relationships. I’m not leading them to some false God or something like that.

I rewrote the ending to ‚Farewell to Arms,‘ the last page of it, thirty-nine times before I was satisfied.

With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.