“My value as a woman is not measured by the size of my waist or the number of men who like me.”

I think we all carry within us different versions of ourselves. Our true, greatest, most honest versions of ourselves can either be developed and nourished, or it can remain dead from neglect.

We fail because when Allah gives us these blessings, we unwittingly turn them into false idols in the heart.

The Prophets! And they were the closest to Allah. Every hardship is good for you-if it brings you closer to Him!

When we can’t marry the person we had in mind, our inability to look beyond may even blind sight us from someone who is in fact better for us.

This world isn’t perfect. That means it isn’t perfectly good; but it isn’t perfectly bad, either. The ease comes with the hardship. Shift the focus of what you see, and your experience of this life will change.

My worth as a human being is measured on a higher scale: a scale of righteousness and piety. And my purpose in life-despite what fashion magazines say-is something more sublime than just looking good for men.

You’ve been given status today, but never forget where you came from. You came from dirt and will return to dirt. You will be on that day as you began: just you and Him.

Don’t expect your spouse to be perfect. He/she is only the dunya version of themselves. Their ‘perfect’ version is saved for jennah.

Before anything can break your heart, it must first own your heart. Stop handing your heart to dunya-it’ll stop breaking it.

We will suffer the moment we take our eyes off the End and get lost in the means.

Many years ago, our father Ibrahim (AS) made a choice. He loved his son. But He loved God more.

We will be asked, “what did you love most in this world? What did you spend life doing? What did you run after? Will it last? The things that you chased, will they last? Will they help you, or will they hurt you when the illusion of this life has passed?”

Everything is as it should be. God’s design is perfect.

There’s something amazing about this life. The very same worldly attribute that causes us pain is also what gives us relief:

People think it’s the mind that drives us. It is the heart. The mind is a slave to the heart. So check the condition of the heart.

You never have to be scared of the trials but of standing alone in the trials without shelter (Allah’s help).

If rowing is a trial then the ergometer is the courtroom, the meter is the jury. And an honest jury at that, because the numbers do not lie.

I’ve met quite a number of people in my career, but I do have an extraordinary memory. And even though they may drift into the periphery of my memory, I can bring them right back when I need them.

Since the end of the Cold War, Soviet aggression had been replaced by a number of particularly venomous threats, from Timothy McVeigh to Osama bin Laden.

It’s a tough thing to know that when you’re making your album, you’re going to end up collaborating with, say, Wal-Mart, on your artwork. That just sucks. And the pressure behind getting the numbers real fast is, to me, dizzying.

You know, the music business is like the Lotto. Just put your numbers down and sometimes they hit, and sometimes they don’t. There’s just no rhyme or reason.

While the nominal strength of a country is represented by its numbers and resources, this muscular development is dependent on the state of its internal organs and nerve-system – upon its stability of control, morale, and supply.

Vengeance does not subtract any numbers from the equation of murder; it only adds them.

I’ll have the chance to do a production number on A Capitol Fourth.