“Whenever my country has something bad happening I feel guilty for not being there. It’s weird.”

First things first, I’m da realest.

My real name is Amethyst. It sounds like a stage name. My mom is kind of crazy.

As a child, I remember my dad would sometimes drive me into town with him to play pinball machines together. It’s a bittersweet memory but also a favorite.

I love purple because my name is Amethyst.

I found it to be kind of ironic, because I’m white, therefore I’m appropriating culture, but then Eminem won it – who’s white and won it many times – and they didn’t seem to say anything about that. I suspect it was just because they dislike me.

I think that music is still art, even if it’s commercialised.

Anyone’s happier when they’re not being verbally abused all day long.

Really good things take time to grow. Foundation is not built over night.

At the very worst, if I have a short-lived career, at least I could say I sparked a change – that I inspired some leniency in what people accept in hip-hop. And if I have a very long career and can be gyrating in a leotard at 35, that would be great.

I’d known since about eleven that I wanted to live in America.

I naturally want to be provocative.

Luxury lives in the finer details. It’s a cloth napkin at a dinner table. It’s a mint on your pillow before bed.

Iggy’ was my dog – he was named after Iggy Pop – and ‘Azalea’ is the street where I grew up; together, they have the right amount of syllables to make the perfect name.

Music is art to me, and you don’t censor art. You don’t go into a museum and censor things.

No money, no family, 16 in the middle of Miami.

I’ve never heard a man in a suit tell me what to wear; that’s not their forte. You hire your stylist; whatever someone’s image is as an artist is what they’ve chosen to portray.

I do not label anyone as wrong or bad. I accept them and my respect heal them.

A bad word from a colleague can darken a whole day. We need encouragement a lot more than we admit, even to ourselves.

You can have anything in this world you want, if you want it badly enough and you’re willing to pay the price.

When I walk through that gate to the court, that’s my escape. I block out everything, good and bad.

Good manners sometimes means simply putting up with other people’s bad manners.

My soul transforms itself into a mode of good or bad in direct relation with the way you treat and value me.

Let the refining and improving of your own life keep you so busy that you have little time to criticize others.

If you play good cricket, a lot of bad things get hidden.