The poet ranks far below the painter in the representation of visible things, and far below the musician in that of invisible things.

I do probably 60 concerts a year in the States. And I go out to clubs in the week. I’m doing new stuff all the time.

My career as Nipsey Hussle is based on my life as Ermias Asghedom.

The reason that I’m here at all is because of my relationship with my family and their encouragement of me to be a musician and to work hard. As long as I stay there in that space, I can do anything. That’s my truth.

Joyce is a poet and also an elephantine pedant.

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

For so many people, television and movies may be the only way they understand people who aren’t like them.

Mick Fleetwood was one of my first interviews. And if you’ve ever talked to that dude, he’s the sweetest guy in the world – he’s just a trip.

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

No one sells a song better than the person that wrote it.

Apple has given me a platform to spread music. They’re giving us Latinos a chance to shine.

All my momma’s people were very musical. My grandpa, who was the Pentecostal minister, he was a great musician. He played the fiddle, he played the piano.

Here, sir, the people govern; here they act by their immediate representatives.

Even though I’m known as a pop musician, I have a seriousness about what I do.

In order for me to be successful… In order to be a great artist – musician, actor, painter, whatever – you must be able to be private in public at all times. That is what we do.

To not be modest about it, you’ll find that with only a couple of exceptions, most of the musicians that I’ve worked with have done their best work by far with me.

The painter who is familiar with the nature of the sinews, muscles, and tendons, will know very well, in giving movement to a limb, how many and which sinews cause it; and which muscle, by swelling, causes the contraction of that sinew; and which sinews, expanded into the thinnest cartilage, surround and support the said muscle.

I’m gonna be making records anyway, even if I had to sell ‚em out of the trunk of my car. I’m that kind of musician and singer.

The poet, being an imitator like a painter or any other artist, must of necessity imitate one of three objects – things as they were or are, things as they are said or thought to be, or things as they ought to be. The vehicle of expression is language – either current terms or, it may be, rare words or metaphors.

Here’s the thing: every office I’ve run for I was the first to win. First person of color. First woman. First woman of color. Every time.

I’m just blessed, man, to be able to represent solidarity with the small schools I went to.

It’s an honor for me to represent urban music, reggaeton, trap and hip-hop.

There’s something about music that encourages people to want to know more about the person that made it, and where it was recorded, what year it was done, what they were listening to, and all this kind of stuff. There’s something that invites all this obsessive behavior.

I seem to be getting a lot of things pushed my way that are strong women. It’s like people see Hackers and they send me offers to play tough women with guns, the kind who wear no bra and a little tank top. I’d like to play strong women who are also very feminine.

Performing is a thing in itself, a distinct skill, different from making recordings. And for those who can do it, it’s a way to make a living.

I think the whole stigma of ‚black movies‘ is slowly being lost. When you look at movies like ’12 Years A Slave,‘ to ‚The Butler,‘ to ‚The Best Man,‘ to ‚Ride Along,‘ to even ‚Think Like a Man‘ from last year – these movies are just good movies.

I just love working with Eminem. He’s just one of my favorite rappers, and his lyrics – he’s a true poet, and I enjoy that about him.

If I’m the people’s poet, then I ought to be in people’s hands – and, I hope, in their heart.

I carry the flag of Ireland all the time. I want to represent my country.

The mind of the painter must resemble a mirror, which always takes the colour of the object it reflects and is completely occupied by the images of as many objects as are in front of it.

If it weren’t for the Beatles, I would not be a musician.

It’s a representation of yourself, and you can express a lot of your creativity with what your wearing.

Of course, it does depend on the people, but sometimes I’m invited places to kind of brighten up a dinner table like a musician who’ll play the piano after dinner, and I know you’re not really invited for yourself. You’re just an ornament.

I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I’ll die like a poet.

Having a simple career as a musician who liked music was good enough for me.

If a poet is anybody, he is somebody to whom things made matter very little – somebody who is obsessed by Making.

I never wanted to sing. I just wanted to play rhythm guitar – hide in the back and just play.

Cause I’m a musician, I’m not really good at posing and being a model, like, modeling.

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

I’m not a very creative person, you know? I’m not really an art person. I’m not a great reader or writer or artist or musician.

I’m a painter in sound.

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.

Literature must rest always on a principle, and temporal considerations are no principle at all. For, to the poet, all times and places are one; the stuff he deals with is eternal and eternally the same: no theme is inept, no past or present preferable.

A poet never takes notes. You never take notes in a love affair.

Death most resembles a prophet who is without honor in his own land or a poet who is a stranger among his people.

Well I think any author or musician is anxious to have legitimate sales of their products, partly so they’re rewarded for their success, partly so they can go on and do new things.

I had to prove you could be a new kind of black man. I had to show the world.

A poet can survive everything but a misprint.

The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot.

As a musician and a songwriter, it is an act of the ego to believe that other people might be interested in your point of view. But it is usually an empathetic nature that gets you going in the first place.

It’s an endless proving of myself, that I really am a musician, that I have something to offer in the room. That women can be musicians, women can be rock stars, women can be more than an objectified idea of a pop star.

The key is to vote because we need a vote to put the people in power that we want to represent us.

A poem is a naked person… Some people say that I am a poet.

I’m a singer, not a politician, and I think you don’t want the two to get confused. It’s not OK to be on CNN talking about people starving and then tell the interviewer that your new album is coming out in six months.

June Jordan, who died of cancer in 2002, was a brilliant, fierce, radical, and frequently furious poet. We were friends for thirty years. Not once in that time did she step back from what was transpiring politically and morally in the world. She spoke up, and led her students, whom she adored, to do the same.

At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.

I taught myself to play the guitar by listening to Paul Simon records, working it out note by note. He is an incredibly intelligent musician. He’s not someone who has a natural outpouring of melody like McCartney or Dylan, who are just terribly prolific with musical ideas.

I just want to keep writing music.

As a musician and a songwriter, it is an act of the ego to believe that other people might be interested in your point of view. But it is usually an empathetic nature that gets you going in the first place. Music keeps the heart porous in many ways.

It is a curious thing: man, the centre and creator of all science, is the only object which our science has not yet succeeded in including in a homogeneous representation of the universe. We know the history of his bones, but no ordered place has yet been found in nature for his reflective intelligence.