Quotes

If you don't see something as a career but as an important part of your life, you don't know how you're going to feel about it.

What you learn from working with other performers and musicians is invaluable, really, and can only help you grow. I mean, if you spend your whole life focusing on yourself, you're not really learning much.

I want to be a better person in every aspect. I really don't feel I've in anyway fulfilled my potential in every area of my life. But I'm optimistic.

I spent two years figuring out how I could turn it into something that would satisfy me as a musician but also make some kind of cross-cultural link. I feel that I kind of at least touched on the possibilities of cross-cultural music, but it is a lifetime's work, and I don't profess to be anything other than a novice at it.

There are very few things I've done just twice in my life, 40 years apart, and one is to backpack on the Pacific Crest Trail across the California/Oregon border.

Part of keeping work and life in balance is surrounding yourself with people that have similar aspirations.

I had to architect my life where I could raise my children.

Look at my life. I ain't got nothing to be mad about.

I lost my girl a couple years back, Aaliyah, in a plane crash. I wasn't expecting that, and also, my mother died, and at the time, my father wasn't in my life; the only person that took care of me was my mom.

I monetized my life so I never do anything that I don't like or that I'm not participating in 100 percent.

Most moms and dads, they want to be good moms and dads. But it's an incredibly hard job when you are stressed out, when you are poor, when your life is in chaos. And giving them some of the tools to be better parents, to whittle away at that parenting gap, gives those kids a much better starting point in life.

I never really considered myself super hip-hop, ever in life. I don't think anything that I've done reflects that.

I don't wanna be yelling all my life. How loud did I have to yell to say that Jay-Z was the man and the best rapper of all time?

At Christmas, 'It's a Wonderful Life' makes me cry in exactly the same places every time, even though I know it's coming.

It changed my life in a lot of ways - before I got that role I was just going from job to job, not really having enough money to be able to do what I wanted to do.

I've spent so much time the last seven, eight years in Los Angeles, away from my family, away from my friends, away from the city that is my favourite place to be and I just want to come here and have a proper life.

For the first five years of my life, things felt pretty good. A lot went wrong after that, family-wise.

There are a lot of factors in the life of an F1 driver which can combine to make you believe that you are somehow above normality. I think that is a mistake to start believing that. But, at the same time, it is important to be confident.

Last year was a lifetime, a whole career in one season. We went from being the dregs to winners.

There are moments in one's life where you look back and you say, 'Well, I wish I had done this differently.'

One of the great rewards of a writer's life is that it lets you read all the books you want to without feeling guilty.

There is a reason behind life. There is some connectivity between living beings. Whether you want to call that 'God' or 'The Force' or whatever word you use for it, I do believe in a spiritualized mechanism.

The year that 'Lost' started and premiered was, without a doubt, the most miserable year of my life. The level of despair and anguish that I was feeling; I was clinically depressed, and anyone that you talked to who knew me at the time will tell you that.

I long ago came to the conclusion that all life is 6 to 5 against.

All the family gatherings, I'm too tired, or I can't because it conflicts with work... I have seven grandkids. I've been missing recitals and graduations. To me, it's just not worth it. There is a better way to live life.