I wasn't born a superstar.

I want to make something commercial that people can pick up on.

It's just that back then we didn't know that was considered being a coproducer. I would sit on the side and say what I wanted musically, but at the time we thought if you aren't the one playing it, you don't get the credit. Now you'll start seeing my name listed as producer.

I'm not a person that's walkin' down the street looking mean all day.

Hip-hop is definitely not what it used to be, which was creative, original music.

I love my mother. She's my first love. She has been through a lot and is a sole survivor.

I've always had a lot of creative impact on the music with Timbaland.

My Struggles is a record close to me. It's about what I went through at home living with an abusive father.

I want kids of this generation to see that everything is cool, that there's some kind of unity in hip-hop. We all found something that's really important to us, and music is all we've really got.

When you turn on your radio, you don't always want to hear about someone shootin' some person. Even if that's the lifestyle they live, people don't always want to hear it.

I wasn't born a superstar.

What my home life is like now is great.

I mean, when it's time to rhyme rhyme, I can get down for mine.

When it comes to size, most people don't want to see themselves looking bigger than what they are.

I want people to feel the heat while they walk down the street and they're just kickin' it.

Now everybody's sampling.

Music should be your escape.

I'm not tryin' to come off as the best lyricist.

You have to be ready to sing and perform at any time.

No, because I don't want to hear what's hot and feel I have to copy it. I'll just make up my own thing.

I got a mother who's very strong after taking the whippings that she took from my father.

And basically I always said when I was little that if I ever became successful or a celebrity, I would buy her this huge house and she would never have to work anymore. And I've done that. So I feel happy about doing that.

Everybody is doing the same old thing.

I want to be cutting-edge.

If you don't have a tonne of optimism, you're not going to make it... you won't be able to evangelise to everyone else. On the other hand, if you aren't constantly paranoid about what can go wrong and put plans in place, then you're going to get bitten at some point.

One thing I love to do is produce. I've produced a couple of bands. I mean, nothing ever really happened with 'em, but I enjoy getting a young band into the studio and guiding them, and making them feel at ease.

Saudi Arabia was, until just a few years ago, probably one of the most safe countries on earth. And now the paper is daily full of activities and shootouts between Islamists who supported Osama bin Laden and the government there.

JFK is a role I've always dreamt of playing.

Clearly, the works of John Carpenter and Sam Raimi are front and center here. Argento is definitely there. But even stuff like the 'Friday the 13th' movies had quite an influence on me growing up.

My grandmother was a teacher, my sister was a teacher, my daughter was a teacher and is now a superintendent in northern California, and my son-in-law is a high school principal. I am surrounded.

The right combination is between a free economy and social policy that addresses the needs of society and creates equal opportunity.

I never know if a song's going to be popular so I don't select them with that in mind. All I can do is follow my heart and my gut and go for songs that make me feel great.

...if a man is not faithful to his own individuality, he cannot be loyal to anything.

I have three goddaughters - I'm not sure why they trust me, because I have no experience with children - but I try.

I was not a politician.

In school, you learn that there are only seven kinds of stories. There's man versus nature, man versus man, man versus himself, blah blah blah. So it doesn't matter what they're called. It's this: do you have a new story that fits into one of those things.

To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.

Tennyson seems to be the patron saint of the wishy washies, which is perhaps why I admire him so much, not only as a poet, but as a man.

When you're in school, every little mistake is a permanent crack in your windshield. But in the real world, if you're not swerving around and hitting the guard rails every now and then, you're not going fast enough. Your biggest risk isn't failing; it's getting too comfortable.

There is no reliable way to calculate from the number of recorded compliance issues how many Americans have had their communications improperly collected, stored or distributed by the NSA.

It is the close observation of little things which is the secret of success in business, in art, in science, and in every pursuit of life.

If you're trying to be a successful writer, and you go into a second-hand bookshop, it's the graveyard of people whose books haven't been wanted.

it is the sum of small things successfully done that lifts a life out of bondage to the humdrum.

I'm such a homebody. I don't party. I don't drink. That may be because I got it out all out of my system before I was 18.

Music pulled me like a gravitational force. I entered college as a physics major but left as a Bachelor of Music, a degree with the same practical application as, say, one in the History of Chinese Poetry.

Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.

People go out of their way to show the love and respect for me. It is very gratifying.

I grew up watching my dad scout games live. They played on Saturday. Sometimes they wouldn't get the films until Monday. Sunday air shipping from wherever the college team was located - Starkville, Mississippi, or wherever the film was coming from. It took two days.