Black culture is a fight. We want to hold on to what we are, but sometimes the things that we are can be totally negative. You have to think: can't we try something new and not be seen as suspect?

You have to be real with yourself. No one is doing that. People are too concerned with making everything look nice and calm and pretty.

We lay out our lives in a narrative we understand, like a movie, but are you enjoying making it or are you wondering who's watching my movie.

If it makes you nervous- you're doing it right.

You're always allowed to be better.

I am what I am, everything I wanna be

Took the G out yo waffle, all you got left is your ego.

I felt like high school for me was like a big whirlpool of me trying to figure out what was OK for me to do.

Bright lights, they tend to burn out fast. So I shine bright, but I'm scared that it won't last.

I personally don't believe people really grow. They just learn stuff when they were a kid, and hold on to it, and that affects every relationship they have.

May your dreams be sweet and your nightmares be spooky-monster-scary and not grandma-died-scary.

Getting married is like trading in the adoration of many for the sarcasm of one.

You can always tell the heart of man by what he do, and by what he don't do...

God tells me how he wants the music played - and you get in his way.

If Obama has his way, the change that is coming is a new America: "fair," leveled and social democratic. Obama didn't get elected to warranty your muffler. He's here to warranty your life.

What we will not wait for is that particular nexus of terrorism, weapons of mass destruction that is extremism, and the technology to come together in a way that is harmful to the United States.

I'm six foot eleven. My birthday covers three days.

There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It's always been my way of expressing what for me is inexpressible by any other means.

Nobody on the road. Nobody on the beach. I feel it in the air, the summer's out of reach.

It's very important to make nuclear deals but you have to make them from strength, not from weakness.

Success in battle is not a function of how many show up, but who they are.