"It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear."

"Life, thought the naked man, was a hell, with rare moments recalling some ancient paradise."

"And when my spirit wants no stimulus or nourishment save music, I know it is to be sought in cemeteries: the musicians hide in the tombs; from grave to grave flute trills, harp chords answer one another."

"From this arid sphere every discourse and every poem sets forth; and every journey through forests, battles, treasures, banquets, bedchambers, brings us back here, to the center of an empty horizon."

"And Marco's answer was: 'Elsewhere is a negative mirror. The traveler recognizes the little that is his, discovering the much he has not had and will never have."

"Of course, the ideal position for reading is something you can never find."

"Fantasy is a place where it rains."

"When the olfactory alphabet, which made them so many words in a precious lexicon, is forgotten, perfumes will be left speechless, inarticulate, illegible."

"Her friends' lips were red, their teeth white, and their tongues and gums were pink. Pink, too, were the tips of their breasts. Their eyes were aquamarine blue, cherry-black, hazel and maroon."

"Your case gives me new hope," I said to him. "With me, more and more often I happen to pick up a novel that has just appeared and I find myself reading the same book I have read a hundred times."

"... we cannot love or think except in fragments of time each of which goes off along its own trajectory and immediately disappears."

"The unconscious is the ocean of the unsayable, of what has been expelled from the land of language, removed as a result of ancient prohibitions."

"You're the absolute protagonist of this book, very well; but do you believe that gives you the right to have carnal relations with all the female characters?"

"The dream of being invisible . . . When I find myself in an environment where I can enjoy the illusion of being invisible, I am really happy."

"We'll make an army in the trees and bring the earth and the people on it to their senses."

"The more time passed, the less happened. The more they felt something must happen, the more the bailiffs realized they had to do something but the less they understood what it was."

"With the smell of beer I try to get the smell of death off me. And only the smell of death will get the smell of beer off you, like all the drinkers whose graves I have to dig."

"No, memory is true as long as you do not set it, as long as it is not enclosed in a form."

"The fact is that I find in the day's light, in this diffused, pale, almost shadowless luminosity, a darkness deeper than the night's."

"If you want to know how much darkness there is around you, you must sharpen your eyes, peering at the faint lights in the distance."

"A poor writer is one who names rather than represents."

"The thing about being an artist today is you get to develop right in front of people's eyes before you even put out an album."

"There's been people who've rapped and produced - like Kanye - but I don't feel like on the rapping side there's ever been a producer who can rap as good as I think I can rap."

"I want to be like Bruce Springsteen or something, making songs that are relevant."

"In hip-hop, there's not a lot of love. There's not a lot of love being spread. It's always like 'I'm stuntin' on you raps, or I'm better than you raps.' It's not a lot of 'Yo man, I idolize you raps.'"

"My parents were divorced by the time I was even conscious - like, I don't remember them ever being together."

"Producing all my own songs and refusing to go to the hot producer. That's the biggest risk I've taken so far."

"I kinda like the idea of having an album that's all me."

"No rapper in the world from Jay-Z to Tupac to Biggie has 100 percent love on everything they do."

"I had a rat-tail when I was younger. I had this nice Bobby Brown fade, with a rat-tail that was long enough to wrap around my face. I used to chew on the end and bite it."

"Sometimes I try a Mai Tai. It's so fruity. It's a little embarrassing, but I like it."

"I was a huge Mike Tyson fan growing up; his fights were always on in my house."

"I worked in ad sales. I would call up local businesses and try to get them to buy ads in the paper. The whole time, I felt like I was just scamming people."

"I think if I did something in the pop world right now, it would be for Rihanna. I'd love to do something production wise for her."

"My fans love me for me, my beats, my rhymes."

"I've got two Rolexes that I'm very proud of - a gold Presidential that was a gift and a white gold one I gifted myself. I'm trying to step my game up and get a few more of those."

"I met Will Smith twice. I didn't talk to him for too long but I was trying to let him know that my age group grew up watching him - he was the coolest guy on television and the coolest guy in movies."

"I don't live for the accolades. I'm more so about the music. Making it, and putting it out. Those are the two best feelings."

"I have a little bit of that gamer spirit in me. I just don't have the time to be a gamer. But in another life, I would be one."

"One day, I'll be listening to a bunch of Ray Charles, the next day it's nothing but Red Hot Chili Peppers. The next day it might be Tupac all day."

"I feel like the reason people feel like they know me is because I'm giving you myself in the music. There's where the connection comes from; you can't Twitter that."

"I still wanna rap better than everybody else, and I wanna say important things."

"I do put a lot of God in my music, but not because I'm super religious. There are a lot of demons in my music, too. I acknowledge both."

"Barack Obama would not be President if he were dark skin. You know what I mean? That's just the truth. I might not be as successful as I am now if I was dark skin."

"College isn't in everyone's hearts. I am living proof, though, that school doesn't mess up your plans. It gives you more experiences to write about."

"I pay attention to lyrics and I know what rap fans care about. I try to write for the average listener and I'm conscious of the mainstream without selling out."

"I'm half-black, half-white, so I basically put it like this: I can fit in anywhere. That's why I write so many stories from so many different perspectives, because I've seen so many."

"When I was in college my girl got me a job at the doctor's office she was working at. I was a file clerk. No disrespect but I don't think a man can do that job. It takes so much meticulous and precise file-keeping."

"I'm a super-duper over-analyzer. You mix that with self-doubt and pressure, and that's never healthy."

"I was a class clown. At 12, I was definitely clowning. I was making all the jokes. But I was smart, so the teachers didn't know what to do with me."