“I think the hip-hop purists are purists through and through. They’re here to criticize all of us. That’s just how it is. We as MC’s criticize each other. That’s the nature of hip-hop.”

When you’re a teenager, you want to meet a lot of girls – you want to get the most girls.

Marley is someone before his time, man. He’s – he’s almost – he’s like a deity, like almost, you know what I mean?

I’m smiling. Those things are really not bad enough to put me in a slump. I’m smiling with the opportunity to wake up every morning.

Hip-hop is bigger than the South; hip-hop is bigger than New York.

When you have a daughter, you want to protect her from the things that I’ve seen out there, you know, the things that’s out there that ain’t good for her. It’s a crazy world we live in.

I think if I heard someone else talking about their life, describing all the problems I’ve had, they’d look like they were through. Done. But there’s something about me.

GaGa is one of my favourites. Her voice is incredible and she’s fearless and she’s ahead of the game. She’s ahead of the entire game, and I admire that.

I’m just little me, an American who wants to see his country do better.

Every time I get in the studio, I feel like I wanna have some fun.

The flaws, the mistakes I make – that’s the real me.

Every generation witnesses atrocities. People in power try to fulfill prophecy.

My earliest memories of rap music was mixed with my earliest memories of reggae music. They were big sounds around the way, heavy bass lines, strong messages, definitely.

I had a pretty public divorce. They’re not easy – divorces – and it took me a long time to really get through.

I want to have fun. It’s a beautiful life. You learn, you win, you lose, but you get up.

Whenever I received too much praise, it just didn’t feel right to me – ever.

I’ve been called everything. Gangsta rap. I’ve been called conscious rap. You know, everything. Whoever feels like calling it whatever they want to call it, that’s on them.

We spend our lives, all of us, waiting for the great day, the great battle, or the deed of power..

It is a monstrous thing that I will say, but I will say it all the same: I find in many things more restraint and order in my morals than in my opinions, and my lust less depraved than my reason.

Political work is the life-blood of all economic work.

One in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest.

Neither the Christian attitude of love for all mankind nor humane hopes for an organized society must cause us to forget that the ‘human stratum’ may not be homogeneous.

Too bad all the people who know how to run this country are busy running taxicabs or cutting hair.

It’s a rule to give all, and it can make the difference if you work more. If you don’t have to give all, and you still win, what’s this?

I look for what needs to be done. After all, that’s how the universe designs itself.