“My father’s songs don’t intimidate me; my father’s songs are my songs. My songs are his songs. There’s no intimidation.”

The roots of my music start from the ghetto.

The challenges we face are never as important as the challenges we face up to.

Success means different things to different people. To me, the greatest quality of successful human beings is the ability to love.

I grew up with coconuts as the main flavor in food in Jamaica. It’s part of our culture.

Everywhere you go, my love will follow.

What inspires me is the universe.

I think Americans should have a policy of love. That should be the foreign policy, love. Export Love.

The solution for mankind is of a spiritual nature. It is not a political or religious solution. It’s the ability to love each other. That’s the only solution I see.

My life is a life of accepting what the universe has offered me. I don’t fight the universe.

Love is more than one thing.

I’ve never read one book about my father.

My father loved all different types of music. He wasn’t a snob. He wasn’t a purist.

Some of my songs I don’t do on tour because they don’t work well live.

If food is labeled, some people might choose to eat stuff that’s genetically modified. They might decide they love it. But give us a choice.

My dream is to live a good life and be loving, be close to God and be a good human being and bring peace to people.

Success to me does not mean money.

I have certain objectives. They’re the same objectives my father had to give people a higher standard of living, to do away with the cancer of poverty, to eliminate the consequences of economic backwardness.

If it wasn’t for baseball, I’d be in either the penitentiary or the cemetery. I have the same violent temper my father and older brother had. Both died of injuries from street fights in Baltimore, fights begun by flare-ups of their tempers.

As my father [Javāharlāl Nehrū] said, you have to keep an open mind, but you have to pour something into it – otherwise ideas slip away like sand between your fingers.

My dad told me when I was very young, that I should not get married before 30. His only advice to me was to live my life.

My father was a saint. I’m not.

It’s not right to say that my father influenced me more than others, and I wouldn’t be able to say whether my personality was formed more by my father or my mother or the Mahatma [Gandhi] or the friends who were with us.

I’ve never made an excuse of not knowing my father, because I’ve had great people in my life.

My father had a couple of kids at the beginning of the Depression. There was not much employment. Not much welfare. People barely got by. People were tougher then.