I’ve seen zero evidence of any nation on Earth other than Mexico even remotely having the slightest clue what Mexican food is about or even come close to reproducing it. It is perhaps the most misunderstood country and cuisine on Earth.

Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is.

To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.

I love food.

It could be if I fight in front of one person or one million people. It’s still the same emotions.

If I’m gonna tell a real story, I’m gonna start with my name.

It’s easier to aim to please and say what others want to hear than to form an opinion and fight for it, even if it means taking a risk or losing your job.

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

I’ve always done whatever I want and always been exactly who I am.

An unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling lie.

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

I fear that many a man’s good resolutions only need the ordinary fire of daily life to make them melt away. So, too, with fine professions and the boastings of perfection which abound in this age of shams.

Everyone assumes I practise all of my own laws but I don’t. I think anybody who did would be a horrible ugly person to be around.

Sometimes you have the trends that’s not that cool. You may have certain artists portraying these trends and don’t really have that lifestyle, and then it gives off the wrong thing. And it becomes kinda corny after awhile. It’s really about keeping hip-hop original and pushing away the corniness in it.

I say what I want to say and do what I want to do. There’s no in between. People will either love you for it or hate you for it.

Every man should know, if you’re comfortable and you like it, you should do it. Everyone always worries about what the girls think, what the guys think. If you like it, do it.

Truth has rough flavours if we bite it through.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

What you’re going to be eating in the next year is decided by chefs. If the consensus is that pot-bellies are in next season, that’s what’s on your plate. And I think that’s a good thing, because we know, obviously, about food.

When you realize who you live for, and who’s important to please, a lot of people will actually start living. I am never going to get caught up in that. I’m gonna look back on my life and say that I enjoyed it – and I lived it for me.

Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.

There is more to sex appeal than just measurements. I don’t need a bedroom to prove my womanliness. I can convey just as much sex appeal, picking apples off a tree or standing in the rain.

If it’s going to come out eventually, better have it come out immediately.

Once you’ve changed who you are or who you’ve portrayed in your music, the fans, they’ll catch it… Once I feel like the world knows me for anything else but my music, then I feel like I failed.

I don’t really have a gimmick or a ‚thing.‘ I’m one of the few artists who gets to be himself every day.

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

Those outside the church expect followers of Christ to live differently, yet today many in church are chasing after the world – not to win them, but to be like them.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

I will never say something I don’t agree with or believe in… even if the reward is massive!

The French have got taste.

It’s very important for Christians to be honest with God, which often, you know, God is much more interested in who you are than who you want to be.

Being too good is apt to be uninteresting.

The snow goose need not bathe to make itself white. Neither need you do anything but be yourself.

The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.

I have been influenced in my thinking by both west and east.

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.

I would impress upon your minds the fact that if you want to do a man justice, you should believe what a man says himself rather than what people say he says.

If you consider the definition of authenticity, it’s saying something and actually doing it. I write my own songs. I made my own videos. I pick my producers. Nothing goes out without my permission. It’s all authentic.

If you change and adapt your persona, you are seen as inauthentic; if you stay the angry young man, you fade from attention or seem tiresome.

Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.

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

I have resolved on an enterprise that has no precedent and will have no imitator. I want to set before my fellow human beings a man in every way true to nature; and that man will be myself.

It is very hard to not be able to engage with people in a real and honest way because they either want something from me, or they see me as something that I simply am not.

Everybody always laughs because I feel so much more comfortable with, like, a giant paper bag on my whole body and paint on my face. Sometimes I try really hard to take it all off. But inevitably what’s underneath is still not a straight edge. And I don’t think it ever will be.

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

Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.

Real life is the life that’s in you, not your circumstances, like where you live or what job you have or who you’re in relationship with.

I don’t need you to be funny. I don’t want to be entertained.

I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.

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

I feel like I have a job to do, like I constantly have to reinvent myself. The more I up the ante for myself, the better it is in the long run. I try to interact with my fans as much as possible. It’s good that the person I’m being onstage isn’t really an act. It’s really me.

My writing is jagged and harsh, I want it to remain that way; I don’t want it smoothed out.

I know a lot of artists say this, but it’s hard to put myself in a box. I just write songs that I strongly believe in and that are coming form a special place. There’s no tricks.

I have learned that as long as I hold fast to my beliefs and values – and follow my own moral compass – then the only expectations I need to live up to are my own.

I looked the people of Louisiana in the eye and told them exactly what I thought in terms that normal people use.

One of my proudest moments is I didn’t sell my soul for the sake of popularity.

There’s no point in saying anything but the truth.

A person who is truly authentic doesn’t need to play a role in life, we think, but can simply be him – or herself.

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

In my father’s generation, the product was 80 percent of what you were putting into the world, and your personal life was 20 percent. It now seems that 80 percent of the product I put out is silly, made-up stories and what I’m wearing.

For a creative writer possession of the ‚truth‘ is less important than emotional sincerity.