"I struggled with being a broke college graduate, and while all my friends were getting career jobs, I was working horrible part-time jobs. That's why now, even when I get tired, I think, 'This is what I asked for.'"

"Anything I do, I want to do it well."

"If I was to go to sleep before midnight, I would feel weird about myself, like I wasted a day. My most productive hours are between midnight and five."

"I feel like this: Whatever is in your path and in your heart, you need to do."

"I've always been an underdog. I feel like I beat the odds."

"You can't reverse fame. You can lose all the money, but you'll never lose people knowing you."

"I'm here to spread a message of hope. Follow your heart. Don't follow what you've been told you're supposed to do."

"I always feel like it's two key ingredients when it comes to following your dreams, making something happen that the average person deems difficult. If you truly believe it, that's step one. Step two, is, you know, the hard work that goes along with it."

"I put a lot of pressure on myself. I think something's not good enough, and I won't stop until I feel like I've made it. I'm never satisfied."

"My real dream is to have a whole, like, buy a whole piece of land. Imagine, like, a long driveway. Like, a cul de sac-type street, with maybe, like, seven houses. Me be right here. Have my mom be able to be right here. My brother over here. My girl's grandmother and family right here. Friends over there. That's my real dream."

"I was just a goofy little funny kid, who was always getting sent to the principal. It wasn't serious because I was smart. I wasn't like a true troublemaker, just rambunctious - like, talkative and trying to be funny. That was me in middle-school."

"When you're headlining, people are paying to come see you specifically. It's a different kind of pressure, because you've got to deliver. You've got to give these people what they paid for. It's a different mind state, a different type of mentality, but it's honestly a pretty good problem to have, you know?"

"I actually started off majoring in computer science, but I knew right away I wasn't going to stay with it. It was because I had this one professor who was the loneliest, saddest man I've ever known. He was a programmer, and I knew that I didn't want to do whatever he did."

"I'm the same kid who used to hop the trains with headphones and just go to downtown Manhattan, walk around and listen to music or walk through the city. The fame restricts that. It's a small complaint in comparison to the benefits I get from it, but the restrictive part is what I don't like - and the fact that it's not reversible."

"I want people to follow their dreams, yes... but I'm not interested in telling young black kids how to be rappers... I want to show them that there's so many other paths you can take, besides a rapper or basketball player."

"Usually I start with a beat, I start making a beat, and my producer side is making the beat. And on a good day, my rapper side will jump in and start the writing process - maybe come up with a hook or start a verse. Sometimes it just happens like that. A song like 'Lights Please' happens like that."

"I was a super-duper Tupac fan, and I realized later, when I became a huge Nas fan and a huge Eminem fan, I was drawn to the storytellers. They all told stories in different ways, but they were all like the best storytellers."

"Touring is very routine. You get to the city, you go to the hotel, you got to be at the hotel by a certain time - it's very routine. I'm not a very structured person, so when I get some structure, it's cool; it's good for me."

"There was the time I bought three cars in the span of three or four weeks. It was crazy; it wasn't greedy. It was mine, my girl's, my mom's. I got Benzes for my ladies. But I felt crazy. You have to understand I come from a world where we're very modest. But that's not greedy. That's nice, right?"

"I just feel like, with rappers, there's so much complacency. It's like, 'Oh, I'm a rapper. I'm successful. I make money. That's all that matters.' But there's a lot of stuff going on in the world. Whether or not you're aware of it, it's happening."

"As much as it might look like, to someone else, that I'm successful, I never feel like I'm anywhere. The further I go, I still feel equally further from my eventual goal. Because as I grow, I get more goals. I'm never content."

"Rhyme patterns are nothing without meanings to the words. A lot of rappers can do those flows, but the raps aren't really about anything - which is cool sometimes, but to have the flow and the message is one of my favorite things."

"People think because I've got some success, I've made it, but in my eyes it's like, 'How long has Jay Z been in the business? How many albums has he got?' Not that I'm trying to be Jay Z, but I am trying to be around for a long time."

"I actually started off majoring in computer science, but I knew right away I wasn't going to stay with it. It was because I had this one professor who was the loneliest, saddest man I've ever known. He was a programmer, and I knew that I didn't want to do whatever he did. So after that, I switched to Communications."

"I now possess the tools as a producer and a songwriter to really just go out and make smashes all day long. I could make an album full of smash records that got pop appeal. But my heart is in hip-hop. My heart is in telling stories. And it's like therapy for me."

"I'm not gonna be bad at anything, and I want to actually be the best at anything I'm doing. So if I'm playing basketball, if I'm taking the SATs, like, there's a competitive spirit behind it. With production, it's the same thing."

"I feel like I'm a New Yorker because I really know the city. I actually tell the drivers where to go - I have this bad habit, I always question the drivers. I do that all the time because I feel like I know the best way, when really it's like, 'Yo, man, shut up. This dude does this every day of his life.'"

"I had a lot of resistance, and not just to fame. I was always conscious of not changing."

"I started playing violin in the 5th grade. They had a program in school where you could get out of class to go play instruments. So I raised my hand, left out of class, me and a bunch of my homeboys, just to get out of class for that day. They asked what instrument you wanted to play and I picked the violin."

"Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody."

"I'm quite illiterate, but I read a lot."

"I'm sick of just liking people. I wish to God I could meet somebody I could respect."

"I am always saying "Glad to've met you" to somebody I'm not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though."

"I like it when somebody gets excited about something. It's nice."

"The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one."

"Mothers are all slightly insane."

"I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody."

"It's funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they'll do practically anything you want them to."

"And I have one of those very loud, stupid laughs. I mean if I ever sat behind myself in a movie or something, I'd probably lean over and tell myself to please shut up."

"I don't exactly know what I mean by that, but I mean it."

"Certain things, they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone."

"People are always ruining things for you."

"When you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write "Fuck you" right under your nose."

"All morons hate it when you call them a moron."

"I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy."

"If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's late?"

"She wasn't doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together."

"People never notice anything."

"People always clap for the wrong reasons."

"And I can't be running back and fourth forever between grief and high delight."