I’m not really concerned with portraying this tough warrior – I mean, that’s part of my job and I take that very seriously. But I don’t have anything to hide, and I’m not concerned with what people think.

I’m no natural beauty. If I’m gonna have any looks at all, I’m gonna have to create them.

When I left Dortmund, I said it’s not important what people think when you come in but what they think when you leave.

Image, lyrics, content, storytelling, cohesive body of work – that’s Prince to me.

As soon as I hear a sound, it always suggests a mood to me.

I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the greatest.

The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.

No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.

If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.

All my pictures are built around the idea of getting in trouble and so giving me the chance to be desperately serious in my attempt to appear as a normal little gentleman.

Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.

It doesn’t matter where you are coming from. All that matters is where you are going.

For me, money is not my definition of success. Inspiring people is a definition of success.

The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury.

Ever since I dated a woman, I know what it is to grab a curve on a woman’s body. Skinny’s not fine when the lights are low.

I don’t see how people are comfortable with seeing other people be great. You can be happy for anybody, but what is your excuse to not want to be great? These people are great because they just say, ‚I’ma do that,‘ and they do it. That’s it. There’s no scientifical process.

If you want a quality, act as if you already had it.

I’m not trying to be fashionable. Never was!

All knowledge or form conception is evoked through the medium of the eye, either in response to disturbances directly received on the retina or to their fainter secondary effects and reverberations. Other sense organs can only call forth feelings which have no reality of existence and of which no conception can be formed.

But being on location and shooting, whether its in Puerto Rico or Atlanta, it always reminds me of how really cool my job can be. Interacting with the fans is one of the best parts of it.

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

Sure it’s a big job; but I don’t know anyone who can do it better than I can.

No accurate thinker will judge another person by that which the other person’s enemies say about him.

You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can.

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

An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.

Don’t ever play yourself.

I think carrying moral baggage is very dangerous for an artist. If you have a duty, it’s to be true and not cover up the cracks.

Platitudes? Yes, there are platitudes. Platitudes are there because they are true.

In memory everything seems to happen to music.

Happiness is within the reach of everyone, rich or poor. Yet comparatively few people are happy. I believe the reason for this is that the majority don’t recognize happiness even when it is within their grasp.

There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see.

Every spirit makes its house, and we can give a shrewd guess from the house to the inhabitant.

Everybody thinks that when new technologies come along that they’re transparent and you can just do your job well on it. But technologies always import a whole new set of values with them.

To restore the trust of the people, we must reform the way the government operates.

I think that I do feel that my nature is to express what this self, this particular self at this time, experiences in the world. And that is so organic – I use this metaphor a lot but I’ll use it again – it’s like a pine tree producing pine cones, or a blackberry bush producing blackberries – it’s just what happens with this being, now.

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.

Honestly, I could care less about other people’s opinions about me.

I think that it’s okay to be mad at someone who hurt you. This isn’t about, like, the pageantry of trying to seem like nothing affects you.

I always try to be smart. I try to treat all the money I’m making like it’s the last time I’m going to make it.

I’m not really good at fun-to-know, human interest stuff. We’re not ‚celebrities‘, whose life itself is a performance. Good or bad or ugly, we are our words. They’re what people meet.

Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?

I tend not to like an awful lot of what is going out under my name now because it is just all product. Who needs it?

I don’t want to make money, I just want to be wonderful.

I’m personally more struck by visual things more than musical.

When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.

People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.

A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.

If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.

Whether happiness may come or not, one should try and prepare one’s self to do without it.

It seems that when you have cancer you are a brave battler against the disease, but when you have Alzheimer’s you are an old fart. That’s how people see you. It makes you feel quite alone.

The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes.

That’s when you know you’re the greatest: when you’re the greatest, and people still put odds against you.

Happiness is found in doing, not merely possessing.

I want to appeal to everyone. Because I’m not saying I’m the best, but we the best.

What you see, but can’t see over is as good as infinite.

I think there is a little magic in the fact that I’m so totally real but look so artificial at the same time.

My fans don’t feel like I hold anything back from them. They know whatever I’m going through now, they’ll hear about it on a record someday. They’ll hear the real story. There’s a little bit of lag time. It’s not as instant as going on a gossip blog. But it’s much more accurate.

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.

Mere bashfulness without merit is awkwardness.