You call yourself what you want to call yourself.

I never had that feeling that I had to carry the weight of somebody’s ignorance around with me. And that was true for racists who wanted to use the ‚n‘ word when talking about me or about my people, or the stupidity of people who really wanted to belittle other folks because they weren’t pretty or they weren’t rich or they weren’t clever.

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

Songwriting is my way of channeling my feelings and my thoughts. Not just mine, but the things I see, the people I care about. My head would explode if I didn’t get some of that stuff out.

In art, at a certain level, there is no ‚better than.‘ It’s just about trying to operate for yourself on the most supreme level, artistically, that you can and hoping that people get it. Trusting that, just because of the way people are built and how interconnected we are, greatness will translate and symmetry will be recognised.

When I did have some success, it further emboldens you to be like, ‚No, I’m just going to write what I feel I should write.‘

I don’t believe in personal immortality; the only way I expect to have some version of such a thing is through my books.

Don’t feel sorry for me.

Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.

I know what I believe, I know what I want to do, and I’m just comfortable saying it, and laying it out there.

I know how fiction matters to me, because if I want to express myself, I have to make up a story. Some people call it imagination. To me, it’s not imagination. It’s just a way of watching.

I think that by staying true to myself and making music from my heart, the blessings come.

I learned a long time ago the wisest thing I can do is be on my own side, be an advocate for myself and others like me.

I think people should feel encouraged to be themselves.

Fashion is that thing that saved me from being sad.

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.

Creation is a sustained period of bliss, even though the subject can still be very sad. Because there’s the triumph of coming through and understanding that you have, and that you did it the way only you could do it. You didn’t do it the way somebody told you to do it.

I look out at the stadiums full of people and see them all knowing the words to songs I wrote. And curling their hair! I remember straightening my hair because I wanted to be like everybody else, and now the fact that anybody would emulate what I do? It’s just funny. And wonderful.

Therapy? I don’t need that. The roles that I choose are my therapy.

You don’t have to be a renowned artist like Q-Tip to try your hand at poetry. You don’t need any special equipment – that’s the beauty of it.

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

I like everything. Boyish girls, girlish boys, the heavy and the skinny. Which is a problem when I’m walking down the street.

Her body calculated to a millimeter to suggest a bud yet guarantee a flower.

The best fashion advice I’d say would be just to do what makes you comfortable and what makes you feel cute, and that’s how you’re gonna look your best ‚cause when you feel your best, everybody else can feel it, too.

Dressing up is a bore. At a certain age, you decorate yourself to attract the opposite sex, and at a certain age, I did that. But I’m past that age.

If tomorrow I want to release a rock album or I want to release a bachata album, nobody can tell me anything – why can’t I?

It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent.

I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.

In 7th grade, I believe, I wrote my first rap song. It was about everything I was seeing, everything that was going on around me.

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

Anything I’ve ever said, I certainly was feeling at the time.

You know, I just do whatever feels right to me! And so that’s what you’re gonna get!

Like Frank Sinatra, I’m doing it my way.

I am an artist, and I have the ability and the free will to choose the way the world will envision me.

Where I come from it was really unheard of to be at a party and someone says, ‚What kind of music do you make?‘, and you say, ‚Pop music.‘ You may as well have ‚I’m not cool‘ stamped on your forehead.

I am who I am and I say what I think. I’m not putting a face on for the record.

I am what I am. A fighter.

I don’t like to write like God. It is only because you never do it, though, that the critics think you can’t do it.

If you’re going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you’re going to be locked up.

I always try to be myself. Ever since I was an introverted kid, I’d get on stage and be able to break out of my shell.

I am who I am. That’s why my friends and peers respect and appreciate me. I don’t change or cater my actions to fit my surroundings. I’m myself 24/7. People appreciate that.

I’m not one icon. I’m every icon. I’m an icon that is made out of all the colors on the palette at every time. I have no restrictions. No restrictions.

I don’t feel much pressure to fit in. I never have. I’ve always just wanted to do my thing. I have really good friends and good family, and if I don’t fit in somewhere else, I fit in at home.

If I could write directly on a typewriter or a computer, I would do it. But keyboards have always intimidated me. I’ve never been able to think clearly with my fingers in that position. A pen is a much more primitive instrument. You feel that the words are coming out of your body and then you dig the words into the page.

Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.

Artistic temperament is the disease that afflicts amateurs.

When I was making the early stuff, I never expected it to be so big. I was in my own kind of bubble. I never wanted to tour; I just wanted to create music and make a diary I could put out into the world. And sometimes, I became the characters.

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

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.

I’m not a person who defends myself very often. I kind of let my actions speak for me.

I am not a victim of emotional conflicts. I am human.

My body is quite tiny, but a lot of the emotions I feel are pretty explosive. They have to come out.

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.

The finest clothing made is a person’s own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.

Freedom lies in being bold.

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

I go through a lot of depression, and I know other people do, too, but I have an outlet that so many people don’t. If you have that inside of you and can’t get it out, what do you do?

I care not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do! That is character!

It’s very hard to find your own words – and you don’t actually exist until you have your own words.

I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.

Most poets are young simply because they have not been caught up. Show me an old poet, and I’ll show you, more often than not, either a madman or a master… it’s when you begin to lie to yourself in a poem in order simply to make a poem that you fail. That is why I do not rework poems.