When I think of myself, I think of Toronto. My music would never sound the way it does if it weren’t for Toronto.

I hope not to define myself by suffering.

I still consider myself a little, fat kid from Hawaii.

Many people identify their sense of self with the problems they have, or think they have.

Going to a therapist is not something you do when you’re growing up as a street kid in Toronto.

When I was born, that was the music my mother was listening to. Michael Jackson is a third parent to me.

I am not some goddess that dropped down from the sky to sing pop music; I am not some extra-incredible human person that needs to be told how wonderful they are all day and kissed.

It’s probably not an accident that the films that I care about happen to be about issues that matter to me, stories that I want to tell.

I never wanted to perform and never proclaimed myself to be a performer.

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

I am whatever you say I am; if I wasn’t, then why would you say I am.

It is important for you to know who you are and who you may become. It is more important than what you do, even as vital as your work is and will be.

You can call me the bad boy chef all you want. I’m not going to freak out about it. I’m not that bad. I’m certainly not a boy, and it’s been a while since I’ve been a chef.

I have always regarded myself, in the first place, as an African patriot.

I love Manchester. Everyone knows that – I have said it many times. Manchester is in my heart.

When people get taken over by the ego to such an extent, there is nothing else in their mind except the ego. They can no longer feel or sense their humanity – what they share with other human beings, or even with other life forms on the planet. They are so identified with concepts in their minds that other human beings become concepts as well.

You know what, I’d done an interview show when I was like 16 or 17. One of my first jobs. I did interviews for this television show in Toronto.

I always tell people that if I move anywhere it would be Toronto.

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.

Why go to a machine when you could go to a human being?

It’s normal for human beings to identify with their own separate self. The problem is that we get caught in that notion of ourself as a separate individual and caught in that individual self’s agenda.

At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.

The ego is only an illusion, but a very influential one. Letting the ego-illusion become your identity can prevent you from knowing your true self. Ego, the false idea of believing that you are what you have or what you do, is a backwards way of assessing and living life.

I’ve been on tour since I was 16, and I always do meet-and-greets before and after shows, so you kind of build these friendships with people. I have girls come up to me and tell me exactly what’s going on in their love lives.

When I was younger, I felt pressure to become someone else once I became successful.

I always think of myself as a working girl.

When people say, you know, ‚Good teacher,‘ ‚Prophet,‘ ‚Really nice guy’… this is not how Jesus thought of Himself. So you’re left with a challenge in that, which is either Jesus was who he said he was or a complete and utter nut case. You have to make a choice on that.

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

Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.

I love almost everything about my work except conferences. I am too shy in front of an audience. But I love signings and having eye contact with a reader who already knows my soul.

You call yourself what you want to call yourself.

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

Say ‚Toronto‘ or ‚Ontario,‘ and the immediate thought associations are with a somewhat blander version of North America: a United States with a welfare regime and a more polite street etiquette, and the additionally reassuring visage of Queen Elizabeth on the currency.

From when I was born to when I was 21, I never left Toronto. That’s why I’m such a city cat.

I think of myself more as a sportsman than I do an artist.

One’s past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged.

I’m very at ease, and I like it. I never thought I would be such a family-oriented guy; I didn’t think that was part of my makeup. But somebody said that as you get older you become the person you always should have been, and I feel that’s happening to me. I’m rather surprised at who I am, because I’m actually like my dad!

I’m so thankful for the Internet because actors and singers and performers now have a way to connect with their fans on a very personal level which I think is quite special.

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.

Hair is about when you’re younger. I am my hair.

Age is whatever you think it is. You are as old as you think you are.

The effect of music on fashion has been immense, especially hip-hop and urban music.

I’ve been writing since I was really young, so I considered myself a writer for a really long time.

You see, the interesting thing about books, as opposed, say, to films, is that it’s always just one person encountering the book, it’s not an audience, it’s one to one.

I feel like I write so that people can think of it as theirs. If my song is exactly about your life right now, then it is – I don’t even want to say that it’s mine, because it’s yours.

What I’m denying is that I’m this cutthroat financier.

I think maybe people see bands and musicians as some sort of superhero unrealistic sport that happens in another dimension where it’s not real people and not real emotions. So, I grew up listening to Beatles records on my floor. That’s how I learned how to play guitar. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be a musician.

We construct a narrative for ourselves, and that’s the thread that we follow from one day to the next. People who disintegrate as personalities are the ones who lose that thread.

People should make up their own mind about what they think of me.

The woman who is known only through a man is known wrong.

We are the people our parents warned us about.

I even found it difficult to watch myself playing on TV because I couldn’t identify with the person on the screen. I couldn’t get to grips with it. It was as if it was all happening to someone else.

I actually don’t want a throne at all, because I don’t view myself as a queen; I view myself as one of my fans.

When you’re thirteen and listening to punk, the aggressive nature of music can sway you to the dark side.

I have too many fantasies to be a housewife. I guess I am a fantasy.

I was born in the Ottawa General Hospital right after the Gray Cup Football Game in 1939. Six months later, I was backpacked into the Quebec bush. I grew up in and out of the bush, in and out of Ottawa, Sault Ste. Marie and Toronto.

I don’t have a type. I don’t have a specific kind of human being. It’s just kind of an X-factor of sorts. Everybody I’ve ever dated has been a case-by-case situation.

The fact that over 50 per cent of the residents of Toronto are not from Canada, that is always a good thing, creatively, and for food especially. That is easily a city’s biggest strength, and it is Toronto’s unique strength.