I want to make pop cool again, and the only way I can do that is by being ambitious and grand.

I came to New York to be a fine artist – that was my ambition.

I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels.

People have to understand one thing: at the age of 18, I arrived at a dream club like Manchester United. It was a dream come true. But, even at that moment, I was thinking about playing in England for some years and then going to play in Spain. Even at that time I was thinking that way, and I always gave 100% everything.

My only scheme was to be a rapper.

In my view, the only thing worse than a rock star is a rock star with a conscience.

If I could, I would not do anything else. I’d just be in the studio for my whole life. I would never go to parties, events, and red carpets. I would rather just be in the studio for the whole time. I don’t even care. Nobody has to know what I look like. I just want to make music.

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

I’m like a rock singer with one-night stands on the road.

I’m not going to get somewhere and say, ‚OK, I’m done.‘ Success is never final; I’ll just keep on going. The same way as failure never being fatal. Just keep going. I’m going to the stars and then past them.

I want to be the greatest actor that ever lived, frankly. I’d love that. But I don’t need to be. I just want to be here. That’s it.

I’m just changing the game because I know what the fans want and the people want ‚cause I’m a fan of hip-hop.

There’s been a lot of talk about Jack White wanting to work with me, and I’ve always admired him, and of course, he lives in Nashville, too.

I seen a lot of artists be hot for a minute, and then that’s it, and somebody else come in.

I think country music is popular – has been popular and will always be popular because I think a lot of real people singing about a lot of real stuff about real people. And it’s simple enough for people to understand it. And we kind of roll with the punches.

Ambition has become a dirty word, and I believe it is a great evolutionary force for the positive. If people fail or go astray in their ambition I can live with it but not with people lowering their expectations, wasting time, slacking off and glorifying failure and stupidity.

There’s more good music being made now than ever before.

The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest to allow anyone to take her away from me.

You just wait. I’m going to be the biggest Chinese Star in the world.

Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.

The biggest crime in England is to rise above your station. It’s fine to be a pop star. ‚Oh, it’s great, lots of fun, aren’t they sweet, these pop stars! But to think you have anything to say about how the world should work? What arrogance!‘

Before finding music, I didn’t have too many aspirations. I wanted to hang out, make a little money from whatever I had to do.

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.

We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don’t want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realize their full potential.

I liked watching Rossi, his style, his colours and everything. He was someone I looked up to and until now he is still my only hero. He is the king of motorbikes and most people like Rossi mainly because he comes across as a pretty fun and good character. He is cool and has a good style and look.

I hoped to be able to write a novel which would enable me to live on it while I wrote the next.

If I tried to make a commercial album, it would be a complete flop. I have no idea what the world at large likes.

Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.

As soon as I accomplish one goal, I replace it with another one. I try not to get too far ahead of myself. I just say to myself, ‚All right, well, I’d like to headline a tour,‘ and then when I get there, we’ll see what my next goal is.

I remember talking with Arcade Fire after their first record, when they were getting all kinds of offers from major labels, and I don’t think I gave them any advice. They survived that whole onslaught pretty well anyway without me.

Music is changing so quickly, and the landscape of the music industry itself is changing so quickly, that everything new, like Spotify, all feels to me a bit like a grand experiment.

I think Ye is important to hip-hop.

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.‘

I’ve never written a song in my life. It’s all a big hoax.

For me, I don’t want to cheat the game by saying, or kind of doing lip service by saying, I want to be the greatest ever. I want to be able to show it.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.

If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?

I think my first thought on reaching the summit- of course, I was very, very pleased to be there, naturally – but my first thought was one of a little bit of surprise. I was a little bit surprised that here I was, Ed Hillary, on top of Mt. Everest. After all, this is the ambition of most mountaineers.

And God help Bruce Springsteen when they decide he’s no longer God… They’ll turn on him, and I hope he survives it.

I can’t deny that the thought of being governor, the thought of being president, is alluring. And beyond that, it would be an opportunity to make a real impact on people’s lives on a global scale. But there are a lot of other things I want to do first.

Ours is one continued struggle against degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the European, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness.

I’m not going to do anything crazy, but I want to do music that I’m passionate about. I’m finally at an age where I can do the music that I grew up loving, which was urban pop, ’90s music. I grew up listening to the divas, so I’m very happy to finally do urban pop. I hope that it’s received well, and it has been so far.

Even though I’m known as a pop musician, I have a seriousness about what I do.

I actually met The Game in my hood on Crenshaw and Slauson. I was outside on the block with 20 of my homies. I see the Range Rover, and we all walked up to his car. I handed him my CD.

Some slaves are scoured to their work by whips, others by their restlessness and ambition.

Moderation has been called a virtue to limit the ambition of great men, and to console undistinguished people for their want of fortune and their lack of merit.

Small aim is a crime; have great aim.

No rapper in the world from Jay-Z to Tupac to Biggie has 100 percent love on everything they do.

I’m not an ambitious person, there is no ambition in my life. I have a mission in my life. And my mission is to serve my country. And when I am working for my state, it means I am working for my country, or my nation.

Fame and power are the objects of all men. Even their partial fruition is gained by very few; and that, too, at the expense of social pleasure, health, conscience, life.

I’ve never thought about any kind of prejudice about women in country music because I never felt like it affected me. I was fortunate enough to come about in a time when I didn’t feel that kind of energy at all, and it was always my theory that if you want to play in the same ballgame as the boys, you’ve got to work as hard as them.

When you’re a pop star, it’s a little conservative; you always have to stay in a box. You have fans that are five and fans that are 65; there are so many people wanting so many things.

I always wanted to operate at the highest altitude, just in terms of hip-hop and the music.

Some day I shall be President.

Pride is still aiming at the best houses: Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell; aspiring to be angels men rebel.

I have taken taking my music to labels for years, and everyone just thought it was creepy. They thought the images with the music were weird and verging on psychotic.

Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.

Every man, and for stronger reasons, every artist, wants to be recognized. So do I.

Any man who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy.