Jay Z and President Bush have a lot in common, that same brash confidence

Hip-hop is still cool at a party. But to me, hip-hop has never been strictly a party; it is also there to elevate consciousness.

I think that the heart is a lot like those wonderful fruit, like coconut and mangoes, you know, you have to break the skin, you have to break it open to get to the good part.

she stuck a bookmark in my heart and walked away

If we're gonna progress as a people we are going to realise that, as one of my favourite poets says, the other is a lie. There are no other people. Race is a social construct.

Sometimes our thoughts and feelings are our most prized possessions... and then there are times to let go of your possessions and wander.

I surrendered my beliefs and found myself at the tree of life injecting my story into the veins of leaves only to find that stories like forests are subject to seasons

There is nothing more negligent than attempting to address a problem one finds on a branch than by censoring the leaves.

I think that good writing is based on good reading. Maybe it's not about writing today, maybe it's about reading today. Maybe it's about finding the sort of book you would never read.

I dance for no reason, for reasons you can't dance, Call me an activist of intellectualized circumstance You can't learn my steps until you unlearn your thoughts Spirit, soul, can't be store-bought.

My love is my soul's imagination. How do I love you? Imagine.

God’s perfect plan and purpose shall be fulfilled in my life.

The first thing I would like to share with youhere is that when you help people, you don’t waitaround until they say thank you because you didn’thelp them so you can hear appreciation.

There are no ugly women there are only women who do not know how to look pretty.

I just want to be healthy and happy. I don't want to hurt anybody or make them mad. If that's a philosophy then that's my philosophy.

Opportunity is a bird that never perches.

You can go on like this for a very long time, and no one will notice. You keep thinking you're going to hit some sort of bottom, but I'm here to tell you: There is no bottom.

Life is before you,- not earthly life alone, but life- a thread running interminably through the warp of eternity.

I don't think of spiritual principle as a struggle. I think of life lived without spiritual principles as a struggle.

If you read our Founding Fathers, people like Benjamin Franklin and Jefferson - what we're doing now in this country is making them roll over in their graves.