The idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at all.

If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.

I learned from the guys before me – Bill Cosby, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Richard Pryor, just to name a few. These are guys that let it all hang out. What they lived is what they took to the stage.

Thought is the wind and knowledge the sail.

I love the song ‚I Hope You Dance‘ by Lee Ann Womack. I was going to write that song, but someone beat me to it.

All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.

If I get stuck, I look at a book that tells me how someone else did it. I turn the pages, and then I say, ‚Oh, I forgot that bit,‘ then close the book and carry on. Finally, after you’ve figured out how to do it, you read how they did it and find out how dumb your solution is and how much more clever and efficient theirs is!

My mother was always fascinated with the fact that I could rhyme so much stuff.

I’ve got my Grammys on top of my piano and I look at them when I play.

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.

Hope is not a resting place but a starting point – a cactus, not a cushion.

Young people can create beautiful things.

It’s kind of like a challenge to myself to be able to hear somebody else’s hook and kind of interpret the words. Because my own hooks, I already know what I mean when I write them.

I want to be an Asian Robert De Niro.

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

The most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men.

And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul – and sings the tunes without the words – and never stops at all.

Passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all things alive and significant.

Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.

When I’m writing a record, I kind of don’t listen to much music. Just because I want to be inspired solely on the emotion; just based on how it feels.

When you’re traveling constantly, every day you become inspired, and it shows in my work, sonically, lyrically, visually. Conversations with women with different accents and stories told in those accents. I like to create characters based on different people I’ve met, and relationships. I like to tell stories loosely based on real-life events.

I don’t live for the accolades. I’m more so about the music. Making it, and putting it out. Those are the two best feelings.

As everything becomes digitized, there’s the idea that things that can’t be digitized become more valuable.

The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me.

We all gonna die eventually from something or other, but don’t be a wimp. Put up a good fight.

Never, and I mean never, allow anyone else’s ideas of who you can or can’t become sully your dream or pollute your imagination. This is your territory, and a ‚Keep Out‘ sign is a great thing to erect at all entrances to your imagination.

If you are born an artist, you have no choice but to fight to stay an artist.

Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.

I had to get rich so I could sing like I was poor again.

My mother was and will always remain my greatest hero.

And as a writer, one of the things that I’ve always been interested in doing is actually invading your comfort space. Because that’s what we’re supposed to do. Get under your skin, and make you react.

Those who create are rare; those who cannot are numerous. Therefore, the latter are stronger.

The way to know life is to love many things.

I feel like in my music I can be a rebel. I can say things I wouldn’t say in real life.

Creative people don’t behave very well generally. If you’re looking for examples of good relationships in show business, you’re gonna be depressed real fast. I don’t have time for anything else right now but work and my daughter. She’s my first priority.

I want to be like Bruce Springsteen or something, making songs that are relevant.

I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents‘ garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees.

What makes life dreary is the want of a motive.

A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.

Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them.

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.

I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream.

For instance, I’m always fascinated to see whether, given the kind of fairly known and established form called popular music, whether there is some magic combination that nobody has hit upon before.

The human race is governed by its imagination.

It’s insane that, since the Beatles and Dylan, it’s assumed that all musicians should do everything themselves. It’s that ridiculous, teenage idea that when Mick Jagger sings, he’s telling you something about his own life. It’s so arrogant to think that people would want to know about it anyway!

We all sort of do want incentives for creative people to still exist at a certain level. You know, maybe rock stars shouldn’t make as much; who knows? But you want as much creativity to take place in the future as took place in the past.

Just because you like my stuff doesn’t mean I owe you anything.

There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it.

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.

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.

If you dream the proper dreams, and share the myths with people, they will want to grow up to be like you.

If I waited for perfection… I would never write a word.

Wine gives a man nothing… it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.

You can write a song about being in love with someone, but you don’t have to be in love with anyone.

Whenever I write a novel, music just sort of naturally slips in (much like cats do, I suppose).

The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory.

The value of beauty and inspiration is very much underrated, no question. But I want to be clear: I’m not trying to be anyone’s savior. I’m just trying to think about the future and not be sad.

I’m wallowing in the whole idea of just being a guy out there with a band, with songs. It’s a real enjoyment.

I’ve had two cancer bouts in my years on the Court, and the first one, Justice O’Connor told me, ‚Now, you do the chemotherapy on Friday because you’ll get over it during the weekend and you can be back in court on Monday.‘