I try to really capitalize off of what other rappers really can’t do. There are opportunities that rappers I love simply can’t get, because… you know… I don’t have the tattoos; I have a different image.

I taught myself how to play the guitar, I taught myself how to play the drums, and I kind of fake doing both of them. But drumming comes more natural to me, and it just feels better.

Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to conceive.

I can express myself.

Modern poets talk against business, poor things, but all of us write for money. Beginners are subjected to trial by market.

I really wish I knew what I was doing because I’d be writing hit songs every minute.

This land is your land and this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway.

If I could write directly on a typewriter or a computer, I would do it. But keyboards have always intimidated me. I’ve never been able to think clearly with my fingers in that position. A pen is a much more primitive instrument. You feel that the words are coming out of your body and then you dig the words into the page.

As our case is new, we must think and act anew.

I just have a thing in my brain that when I’m about to do something that’s genuine or authentic, I think of it in song form. I’ll be like, ‚Yo, this is a human emotion that no one talks about.‘

It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances.

A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting.

I would love to continue in music, with writing… but I am not the kind of person who will hang around if I start to become irrelevant. If that happens, I will bow down gracefully, raise my kids, and have a garden. And I am going to let my hair go gray when I am older. I don’t need to be blonde when I’m 60!

They say you can rap about anything except for Jesus, that means guns, sex, lies, video tapes, but if I talk about God my record won’t get played Huh?

Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world.

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

Greece needs to work on a cleaner image. It’s a big problem, as they have this reputation of being so corrupt.

If an idea isn’t exciting, you shouldn’t do it.

I don’t have time to stand around and listen to an 11-minute song.

The technology keeps moving forward, which makes it easier for the artists to tell their stories and paint the pictures they want.

Originality is really important.

A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.

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.

Ideas have a short shelf life. You must act on them before the expiration date.

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.

The most miraculous process is watching a song go from a tiny idea in the middle of the night to something that 55,000 people are singing back to you.

I didn’t have nothin‘ going for me… school, home… until I found something I loved, which was music, and that changed everything.

I try not to think about anything special while running. As a matter of fact, I usually run with my mind empty. However, when I run empty-minded, something naturally and abruptly crawls in sometime. That might become an idea that can help me with my writing.

If you check your ego at the door when it comes to comedy, you’ve got a pretty good shot at making a great movie that you can commit yourself to, you can jump off the proverbial cliff with, and have a great time, and the audiences respond to that.

Even if my songs are quite sad or quite dark, I don’t want my songs to make people sad. It’s very important for me that all my songs have some kind of hope or light.

I don’t see any boundaries between any of the art forms. I think they all inter-relate completely.

Rhythm is something you either have or don’t have, but when you have it, you have it all over.

If we help an educated man’s daughter to go to Cambridge are we not forcing her to think not about education but about war? – not how she can learn, but how she can fight in order that she might win the same advantages as her brothers?

You can have the platinum album. But, you know, when you still feel like you haven’t quite found your place in the world, it kind of gives a crazy offset.

It didn’t even occur to me that I’m the last person in the world who should play salsa or Brazilian music.

Being an artist doesn’t just mean you have a song. That doesn’t make you an artist. The word ‚artist‘ means so many different things, and I feel like to be a real one, you really have to do it all. The people that I think of as artists – Tyler the Creator, Childish Gambino, Kanye West – are doing the most.

The society based on production is only productive, not creative.

As you know, I’m an immigrant. I came over here as an immigrant, and what gave me the opportunities, what made me to be here today, is the open arms of Americans. I have been received. I have been adopted by America.

Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.

Well, Art is Art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know.

It’s not essential for me to have a big debut week; it’s not essential for me to have big radio records.

I worked with Congress on legislation, gave speeches to CEOs, military generals and Hollywood executives. But I also worked to ensure that my efforts would resonate with kids and families – and that meant doing things in a creative and unconventional way. So, yeah, I planted a garden and hula-hooped on the White House lawn with kids.

There is spontaneity to my work.

Inspiration is hard to come by. You have to take it where you find it.

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

It’s very important that we re-learn the art of resting and relaxing. Not only does it help prevent the onset of many illnesses that develop through chronic tension and worrying; it allows us to clear our minds, focus, and find creative solutions to problems.

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

Innovation can only occur where you can breathe free.

One often makes music to supplement one’s world.

I wanted to prove the sustaining power of music.

I liberate minds with my music. That’s more important than liberating a few people from apartheid or whatever.

I’ve dreamed about doing music since I was three or four years old.

Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.

For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.

I’ve read a lot of really great characters in some really crappy stories, where I said, like, ‚Boy I could shine here, but the story sucks.‘ I don’t want to be part of that.

We allow no geniuses around our Studio.

Really, I have to laugh because there was a whole set of stories that made me sound like the Dragon Lady, you know, ‚tough this and tough that.‘ Then there is this business about ‚gooey.‘ The bottom line is I am a pragmatic idealist.

An operatic voice is like no other.

I have the ’77 Million Paintings‘ running in my studio a lot of the time. Occasionally I’ll look up from what I’m doing and I think, ‚God, I’ve never seen anything like that before!‘ And that’s a real thrill.

I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create.

There’s a lot of pressure putting an album out all over the world and hoping people everywhere like it.