I have a luxury of people coming to see me whether I play for the crowd or not. I don't take that lightly.

A flower that grow in the ghetto know more about survival than the one from fresh meadows.

Skip the religion and politics, head straight to the compassion. Everything else is a distraction.

I ignored your aura but it grabbed me by the hand, like the moon pulled the tide, and the tide pulled the sand.

Do the math: You never settle for less than the whole if you knew the half.

You gotta get back to your essence, Use your gifts and share your presence, Don't count your dollars 'til you count your blessings.

Life without knowledge is death in disguise.

The beautiful thing about hip-hop is it's like an audio collage. You can take any form of music and do it in a hip-hop way and it'll be a hip-hop song. That's the only music you can do that with.

If lyrics sold then truth be told/I'd probably be just as rich and famous as Jay-Z.

I'm at a loss for words. But even my loss is amplified.

You know, there's a lot of activism that doesn't deal with empowerment, and you have to empower yourself in order to be relevant to any type of struggle.

Men love pleasure. but women desire purposeful commitment.

We can prevail with prayer.

When we were together before, the world was small to us, but as you grew bigger to life and the world became desirous to living, we became smaller to each other.

We're always inventing, even if we're making someone who's fairly close to ourselves.

No matter how many weapons you have, no matter how great your technology might be, the world cannot live without love.

I am so happy that I didn't have children. Well, you know, because I've had freedom.

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

I'm very rarely beyond words, and I am right now.

A woman who gives any advantage to a man may expect a lover - but will sooner or later find a tyrant.

Sometimes you have to confront your demons and sometimes even let them loose to genuinely find a place where you can gain some understanding.