There’s hope for everyone. That’s what makes the world go round.

I still think I am the greatest.

You’re not better than anybody else, but you’re not less than anybody else. You’re a child of the Most High God.

I think New York has evolved in my work just the way the city has.

For me, writing a novel is like having a dream. Writing a novel lets me intentionally dream while I’m still awake. I can continue yesterday’s dream today, something you can’t normally do in everyday life.

Don’t ever criticize yourself. Don’t go around all day long thinking, ‚I’m unattractive, I’m slow, I’m not as smart as my brother.‘ God wasn’t having a bad day when he made you… If you don’t love yourself in the right way, you can’t love your neighbour. You can’t be as good as you are supposed to be.

I don’t want to hear the word ‚can’t.‘

The most positive men are the most credulous.

The writing process, the way I go about it is I do whatever the beat feels like, whatever the beat is telling me to do. Usually when the beat comes on, I think of a hook or the subject I want to rap about almost instantly. Within four, eight bars of it playing I’m just like, ‚Oh, OK. This is what I wanna do‘.

All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.

Whatever you are, be a good one.

There’s a scripture that says, ‚A merry heart doeth good like medicine.‘ I think that’s true, too.

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.

My kind of composing is more like the work of a gardener. The gardener takes his seeds and scatters them, knowing what he is planting but not quite what will grow where and when – and he won’t necessarily be able to reproduce it again afterwards either.

If thou art a man, admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail.

There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed.

Life is too short not to celebrate nice moments!

All of my writing is God-given.

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

In acting, you have to pull from real-life situations, from people, to help develop a character.

A man without a goal is like a ship without a rudder.

You don’t have to give way to careless speech or complaining. You don’t have to let your feelings get in the way of what God wants to do in your life.

I only type every third night. I have no plan. My mind is a blank. I sit down. The typewriter gives me things I don’t even know I’m working on. It’s a free lunch. A free dinner. I don’t know how long it is going to continue, but so far there is nothing easier than writing.

I read all the time, and I’m often struck by something I’m reading.

You are important enough to ask and you are blessed enough to receive back.

Read the Bible. Work hard and honestly. And don’t complain.

If you are a leader, you should never forget that everyone needs encouragement. And everyone who receives it – young or old, successful or less-than-successful, unknown or famous – is changed by it.

I think the foundation of everything in my life is wonder.

Never be ashamed! There’s some who’ll hold it against you, but they’re not worth bothering with.

‚Hope and change‘ has become a cliche in our nation, and it is daunting to think that any American could hope for change from what God has blessed.

He that lives upon hope will die fasting.

But God can only smile because only God can know what is coming next.

The world has entered an era of the most profound and challenging change in human history.

Happiness is a ball after which we run wherever it rolls, and we push it with our feet when it stops.

I’m not the sort of person who gives up on things. The first time we crossed the Atlantic in the balloon, it crashed, and we went on and did the Pacific. First time we crossed the Atlantic in a boat, it sank, and we went on and got the record. So, generally speaking, we will pick ourselves up, brush ourselves down, and carry on.

From the moment I started writing raps, I was always aware of the pressure. I always wanted to live up to how huge Snoop got, how huge Dre got, how huge Pac got. I was always aware.

In 1995, I was diagnosed with cancer, and I had to practice what I preached. I had always said to ‚believe in God‘ and ‚don’t give up‘ to little kids who had been diagnosed with cancer. I then thought if I can’t call on that same God and same strength that I told people about, I would be a liar and a phony.

To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.

If only the people who worry about their liabilities would think about the riches they do possess, they would stop worrying.

There are no big problems, there are just a lot of little problems.

A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.

You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you. Or, rather, you can if you will be ruthless enough about it. But the best writing is certainly when you are in love.

Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.

Do not go gentle into that good night but rage, rage against the dying of the light.

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

Music is the voice that tells us that the human race is greater than it knows.

I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.

I try to use my experience and the fact that I grew up in the ghetto – I tell people you don’t have to rob or steal to get out of the ghetto.

I never really had the classic struggle. I had faith.

It is easy to dismiss the world as ‚irrelevant,‘ or consumed by ‚paranoid anti-Americanism,‘ but perhaps not wise.

I subscribe to the myth that an artist’s creativity comes from torment. Once that’s fixed, what do you draw on?

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

First and foremost comes my family and my life with Brad. We have so much joy in raising our children and teaching them about the world that nothing really compares to that.

Forward, as occasion offers. Never look round to see whether any shall note it… Be satisfied with success in even the smallest matter, and think that even such a result is no trifle.

I want to thank The Beatles for almost single-handedly getting me out of writer’s block.

I believe with all my heart that America remains ‚the great idea‘ that inspires the world. It is a privilege to be born here. It is an honor to become a citizen here. It is a gift to raise your family here, to vote here, and to live here.

I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph. And there’s purpose and worth to each and every life.

Imagination rules the world.

It is a most delightful reflection that if I come to the throne of God in prayer, I may feel a thousand defects, but yet there is hope. I usually feel more dissatisfied with my prayers than with anything else I do.

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

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.