I feel like every night, when you see a really good production of 'Romeo and Juliet' or something, you should hope that it ends differently. That's why we watch our favorite movies again and again.

The bad guys have way more fun, in my opinion. 'Bad guys' in quotes.

I don't have any control over the offers that are going to come to me or not come to me. But I can't go backward, and so that's what's tricky.

I think I spent most of my childhood, and my early years as a performer, in student mode. And I think that's OK - I mean, it led me to where I am.

Until you make a name for yourself, they're like, 'Be a little more Denzel,' 'Be a little more Wesley Snipes.'

I wanted to make an album that was hopeful and encouraging and inspiring. That was the goal.

I know what it's like to be ignored; when I got to L.A., I longed for somebody who looked like me to show me the ropes.

What a casting director does is they're a connector.

As an artist, I'm very used to waking up and sort of not knowing what my day's going to be and not knowing where my next paycheck is going to come from.

What goes up must come down; I'm not going to be in 'Hamilton' forever. Everything I work on won't have this kind of success.

Nothing lasts forever in my profession.

When I step on the stage and sing 'Wait for It,' I'm singing that for everybody. I don't mean I'm singing it for them; I mean, you are their voice.

I know what feeling broke feels like real well. I know that real well.

That was the bat signal for me - 'Rent' changed my life. It took me years before I got beyond that show.

I got my Equity Card with my Broadway debut when I did 'Rent.' I was in high school, and I came to New York to do that show.

I kind of think we sort of subconsciously draw things into our lives, whatever we're trying to work through.

I think art, at its best, happens on a conscious and a subconscious level.

I was a good student; I was a good boy. I got A's, and I did all the papers right.

I have a great foundation, a great training foundation. But it took me a long time to let the training go.

We don't get to get swept up, because we have to start over every day at 8 o'clock.

I started out with this 'La Boheme' fantasy, but as you get older, the 'La Boheme' fantasy becomes less sexy, believe me.

It's about polarization. You're trying to stir up something in your audience.

At 14, 15 years old, I started reading 'Backstage' regularly. Eventually, I got enough courage to look at the auditions section.

If you're an open channel when you're onstage, if you're just a vessel, things are going to come out that are stored away deep in your DNA.

You go see a great production of 'Romeo and Juliet,' where those kids are full of life and love, you hope and forget.

I want to know that I'm gonna knock 'em dead every night.

I've done a lot of translation in TV, and I can do it. I'm trained to do it. I know how to inject a certain amount of my naturalness into that and where I come from into those things, but it helps if somebody's writing with my experience in mind.

I grew up in Philadelphia.

Oh, Alexander Hamilton fell short of his best self every now and again, and he still managed to do these wonderful things - well, so do I. So what am I capable of?

You can't judge the people that you play anyway; you leave that for somebody else to do.

All I try to do is put as many colors as I can on the canvas every night.

I think for a lot of us, you know, what 'Hamilton' gave us the opportunity to, what it gave me the opportunity to do, was to go, 'Here's what I've learned in 35 years.'

You hear a song like 'Wait For It,' you hear a song like 'Dear Theodosia' - if you get one of those songs in a musical - one - it's worth dropping everything to sing that one song.

We want to pull out songs from the American song book, and we want to make them palatable for a modern audience.

I know it's hard for people to imagine a time when 'Hamilton' wasn't 'Hamilton,' but for years, it was just this little thing that I was telling people about that didn't make any sense to anybody as I was describing it. But I loved it.

I've spent a long time learning my way around a stage as an actor, but this I don't know as well. Humbly, I'm excited to get with a band and perform regularly as an artist and see what I can learn and how I can grow in that space.

If I'm allowed it, I'm really looking forward to a little time on the couch and a little time on a beach in Brazil.

I had no vision of me being a part of that show ever. But I was committed to being the first super-fan of 'The Hamilton Mixtape' that there ever was. I was in love with this thing.

'Hamilton' has restored my faith in theater.

It's not about doing something that's as big as 'Hamilton.' That may never happen again, and that's okay.

I've realized along the way that a lot of things that I do as a performer are about waiting for somebody to write something for me or develop something for me, but music, music was the thing that I don't have to wait for anybody's permission to do.

To get even realer with you for a second, as a black actor, as a performer of color, I don't know how many more roles like Aaron Burr are gonna come along for me.

The record company felt wisely that we should get something out before I left 'Hamilton' or around awards time, and that deadline was not easy.

I'm in no way running from 'Hamilton' or its success or these beautiful songs that I've been blessed to be able to be the one to introduce them. I certainly won't be the last to sing them, but to be the first, I feel very lucky.

There was a lot of the 'Hamilton' experience that was like a locomotive. It was a hurricane, so the apartment often looked like a hurricane. There were clothes and shoes all over. We were getting more things in than we had room for. We had to figure out how to make space for all the blessings and goodness coming toward us.

I'm addicted to growth.

I think that the best songs to sing are songs that you love, because you sing them with love when you love them.

I've been in a long-term relationship, and I'll tell you, it's never boring! People trying to merge their lives together always run into challenges.

The time I spent in New York when I was 17 gave me the confidence to pursue my dreams with my whole heart.

You gotta love this thing. Whatever you choose to pursue - medicine, law, writing, you have to love it. You study it, you eat it, you drink it, you try it, you do it, you love it in every way.