I’m tough when I have to be, tender when I should be. When you find a really tough guy, he’s not a predator. He doesn’t have to prove himself. Guys who have to pretend to be tough, they ain’t. I’m tough.

I want to grow old without facelifts. I want to have the courage to be loyal to the face I have made.

‚I’ll be back‘ always sounded a little girly to me.

The truth is: Belonging starts with self-acceptance. Your level of belonging, in fact, can never be greater than your level of self-acceptance, because believing that you’re enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic, vulnerable and imperfect.

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.

I was raised to be an independent woman, not the victim of anything.

I just write songs that I strongly believe in and that are coming from inside. There’s no tricks. It’s honesty with big melodies.

I don’t ever want to come out with something safe and get away with, ‚It sounds good!‘ It’s got to be more than sounding good. The music I like are events.

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

I don’t believe in doing things to manufacture my body to appeal to what I think people might like.

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

That’s all I could ever hope for, to have a positive effect on women. ‚Cos women are powerful, powerful beings. But they’re also the most doubtful beings. They’ll never know – we’ll never know – how powerful we are.

And above all things, never think that you’re not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning.

Tears shed for self are tears of weakness, but tears shed for others are a sign of strength.

My husband has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years, and I owe him a debt greater than he would ever claim.

Truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it, else it is none.

Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?

We’re all insecure, aren’t we? I’m not walking around like I’m macho man or anything.

If you’re performing music that is not who you are or where you’re at, it is painful. It’s painful for the performer and for the audience.

I’m the greatest thing that ever lived! I’m the king of the world! I’m a bad man. I’m the prettiest thing that ever lived.

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

I will not be triumphed over.

Anger cannot be dishonest.

I’m not going to say I’m cool, because I don’t really feel that. I just don’t care at all, and I guess that’s what people think is cool.

Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see.

People who say they don’t care what people think are usually desperate to have people think they don’t care what people think.

In this outward and physical ceremony we attest once again to the inner and spiritual strength of our Nation. As my high school teacher, Miss Julia Coleman, used to say: ‚We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.‘

The answer to the problem of inequality is for the people who are fortunate enough to either have been gifted or deserved more to do everything they can to make the communities around them as strong as they possibly can.

I’m sick of the tabloids‘ saying I obsess over guys. Why would you obsess over guys? They don’t like it.

Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves.

I write from my soul. This is the reason that critics don’t hurt me, because it is me. If it was not me, if I was pretending to be someone else, then this could unbalance my world, but I know who I am.

Life is not living in the suburbs with a white picket fence. That’s not life. Somehow our American culture has made it out that that’s what life needs to be – and that if it’s not that, it’s all screwed up. It’s not.

Any man may be in good spirits and good temper when he’s well dressed. There ain’t much credit in that.

I had a period where I thought I might not be good enough to publish.

All of my music is honest.

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.

Sometimes we be playing the politics too much and forget who we are just to win.

I didn’t try to copy my dad or fit into the pressure or the mold that everybody tried to make me fit into.

Everybody wants to be me. What can I say?

It is justice and respect that I want the world to dust off and put – without delay, and with tenderness – back on the head of the Palestinian child. It will be imperfect justice and respect because the injustice and disrespect have been so severe. But I believe we are right to try.

I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was.

I never want to change so much that people can’t recognize me.

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

It was clear to me that if I could get through Princeton at the top of my class, I could do anything in the world.

There are people in the world who have skills and strength and talent that I will never have. Never. These notions that you can ‚be whatever you want to be as long as you want it bad enough‘ are not true. They are fairy tales.

I’ve always been – you know, my personality is motivating and encouraging. And so I’m just being who God made me to be.

One thing about me is I try to be honest.

Remember, the storm is a good opportunity for the pine and the cypress to show their strength and their stability.

We didn’t crumble after 9/11. We didn’t falter after the Boston Marathon. But we’re America. Americans will never, ever stand down. We endure. We overcome. We own the finish line.

I don’t regard myself as a cracking good climber. I’m just strong in the back. I have a lot of enthusiasm, and I’m good on ice.

Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood.

‚They‘ is… stay away from them, please. There is so many different definitions of ‚they.‘ You might have a personal ‚they.‘ They against you; they want you broken and miserable. They don’t like winners; they don’t like people who’s blessed. So everybody’s got a different ‚they.‘

I live halfway between reality and theater at all times. And I was born this way.

My goal was never to make Facebook cool. I am not a cool person.

To kids, I’ve always been more than just some big tough black guy. I train to be tough – I box and do karate – but underneath all that toughness is a tender man.

I don’t know if I’ve ever cared much what others think.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

No man was ever great by imitation.

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

The relationship to one’s fellow man is the relationship of prayer, the relationship to oneself is the relationship of striving; it is from prayer that one draws the strength for one’s striving.