I’m not a supermodel. That’s not what I do. What I do is music. I want my fans to feel the way I do, to know what they have to offer is just as important, more important, than what’s happening on the outside.

For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is.

When I do listen to music, I’m more prone to listen to the people I’ve always listened to: George Jones, Otis Redding, Alison Krauss and Emmylou Harris.

The poetry you read has been written for you, each of you – black, white, Hispanic, man, woman, gay, straight.

In a sense I portray myself in a very androgynous way, and I love androgyny.

I like to read books. I like to listen to music.

I’ve noticed a lot of younger artists have less fear of doing different sorts of things, whether it’s various types of music, or gallery artists moving between video and sculpture and drawing.

I really love Linkin Park, and I loved Chester Bennington, and it is horrible what happened to him. I grew up listening to him because my dad would make these mixtapes with a lot of different artists – Linkin Park, Avril Lavigne, The Beatles, Sarah McLachlan, I just really loved Linkin Park, and their production is really sick.

I couldn’t talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching.

Life is a song to me.

All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.

It’s easy to make an album full of great songs. But I want people to go for the ride. The songs have to make sense together.

It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance, and that, in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things.

I break ground. I trailblaze.

When I listen to a song, I don’t say, ‚Oh my gosh, that vocal line she sang was the best thing I ever heard.‘ I’m thinking, ‚That lyric just moves me. That lyric just said what I feel better than I could say it myself.‘

People have this capacity within them to set the world straight.

I’m gonna make what I want to make, and other people are gonna like what they’re gonna like. It doesn’t really matter.

The colored folks been singing it and playing it just like I’m doin‘ now, man, for more years than I know. I got it from them.

If you’re too big to fit into fashion, then you just have to do your own fashion.

Television sounded really different than the Ramones sounded really different than us sounded really different than Blondie sounded really different than the Sex Pistols.

I feel the emotion that life conjures up and the songs I write get me closer to my feelings and realising who I am. It’s a natural process.

Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.

You have to be a bastard to make it, and that’s a fact. And the Beatles are the biggest bastards on earth.

I don’t live by all these rigid, weird rules that make me feel all fenced in. I just like the way that I feel like, and that makes me feel very free.

Some men never feel small, but these are the few men who are.

If you get to my age in life and nobody thinks well of you, I don’t care how big your bank account is, your life is a disaster.

I’m not claiming divinity. I’ve never claimed purity of soul. I’ve never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can… But I still believe in peace, love and understanding.

As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.

I don’t measure my success anymore by the Grammys. I can’t because I’ll just end up crushed.

‚Trilogy‘ was more of a claustrophobic body of work. Before it was released, I hadn’t left my city for 21 years, and I had never been on a plane, not once. I spent my entire life on one setting; that’s probably why pieces of the album feel like one long track, because that’s what my life felt like. It felt like one long song.

People – especially white people – they want me to be a role model just because of the life I lead. The things I say in my songs, they expect it of me.

I have never been bewildered for long in any fight with our enemies – I was Armed with Insight.

I just know that I’m a fan of all different kinds of genres. You’re supposed to be free doing music, and that’s how I feel.

The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.

When you have nothing important or interesting to say, don’t let anyone persuade you to say it.

A good compromise, a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence; or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, ‚Huh. It works. It makes sense.‘

To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.

The true worth of a man is not to be found in man himself, but in the colours and textures that come alive in others.

It’s nice to be included in people’s fantasies but you also like to be accepted for your own sake.

If I were a Negro, I’d be fighting, as Martin Luther King fought, for human recognition and justice. I’d rather go down with my flag flying. If you’re weak or crippled, or you can’t speak out or fight back in some way, then people don’t hesitate to treat you badly.

I wake up in the morning and my mind starts making sentences, and I have to get rid of them fast – talk them or write them down.

Music is part of the life of fashion, too.

The great music for so many artists – the Beatles, the Rolling Stones – was always at the moment when they were closest to pop. It would be easy for U2 to go off and have a concept album, but I want us to stay in the pop fray.

Music for me, it demands full concentration.

It’s every girl’s dream to be a cover girl!

Those of us who submitted or surrendered our ideas and dreams and identities to the ‚leaders‘ must take back our rights, our identities, our responsibilities.

I have only one counsel for you – be master.

Mariah and Whitney Houston were my goddesses growing up.

It was really hard for them to intimidate me. They felt I was intimidating. One of the growers had a name for me: I think it was ‚dragon lady‘ or something like it.

Music helps me tell my story. That’s where I can really be heard. But there’s so much focus on the things that aren’t music.

Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is.

I grew up in a musical family; the majority of my growing up was done in Hawaii. It’s what we do. You sing, you dance, you play ukulele and you drink.

I was doing sold-out shows before I got radio play.

I love people talking about me; I love anybody just looking at me.

I talk about myself in the third person all the time. I don’t live my life in the way someone like you does. I live my life completely serving only my work and my fans.

The problem with fine art is that in most cases people have to make a special excursion to go and look at it: they can’t afford to own it. So it isn’t really part of their life in the way that music can be.

It’s better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life.

My life is my argument.

Anybody that doesn’t like Cardi B a hater!

Whenever I think about movies, I always look at that art process as having the best of a lot of worlds. Because if you watch a great film, you have a musical element to it, not just on the scoring, but in the way that the shots are edited – that has music and rhythm and time.

When I’m 40 and nobody wants to see me in a sparkly dress anymore, I’ll be like: ‚Cool, I’ll just go in the studio and write songs for kids.‘