Jay-Z

Artists can have greater access to reality; they can see patterns and details and connections that other people, distracted by the blur of life, might miss. Just sharing that truth can be a very powerful thing.

The most amazing feeling I feel_x000D_ _x000D_ Words can't describe what I'm feeling for real _x000D_ _x000D_ Maybe I paint the sky blue _x000D_ _x000D_ My greatest creation was you.

Far from a Harvard student, just had the balls to do it

I never ask for nothin' I don't demand of myself. Honesty, loyalty, friends and then wealth

It was a very intense and stressful situation. There was playing in the Johnny-pump (an opened fire hydrant) and the ice-cream man coming around and all of these games that we'd play, and suddenly it would turn just violent and there would be shootings at 12 in the afternoon on any given day.

I would run into the corner store, the bodega, and just grab a paper bag or buy juice - anything just to get a paper bag. And I'd write the words on the paper bag and stuff these ideas in my pocket until I got back. Then I would transfer them into the notebook.

No one came to our neighborhoods with stand-up jobs and showed us there's a different way. Maybe, had I seen different role models, maybe I'd've turned on to that.

Just strengthening that theme that America is a place of opportunity and hoping to inspire people to fulfill those opportunities, and to want more, and to want better, and to see the places we can go. So many people identify with me because of the place that I come from.

A wise man told me don't argue with fools. Cause people from a distance can't tell who is who.

And through our travels we get separated, never forget:_x000D_ _x000D_ In order to survive, got to learn to live with regrets.

I'm not afraid of dying I'm afraid of not trying

People really feel like music is free but will pay $6 for water. You can drink water free out of the tap, and it's good water. But they're OK paying for it.

The Nets' a stone throw from where I used to throw bricks_x000D_ _x000D_ ...So it's only right I'm still tossing 'round Knicks.

When Basquiat was hanging out with Madonna and Fab Five Freddy, and all those worlds were colliding, people have to realize hip-hop and the arts were like this 'cause we both were outcasts: we wasn't allowed inside the galleries or inside Yankee Stadium. We were writing in the street and making music.

Life is for living, not living uptight, see ya somewhere up in the sky.

When you're growing up, your dad is your superhero. Once you've let yourself fall that in love with someone, once you put him on such a high pedestal and he lets you down, you never want to experience that pain again.

I listen to everything - from Sarah McLachlan and Alanis Morissette all the way down to rap like Scarface, UGK and Lauryn Hill.

As fate would have it, Jay's status appears _x000D_ _x000D_ To be at an all-time high, perfect time to say goodbye _x000D_ _x000D_ When I come back like Jordan, wearing the 4-5.

Do you know how many athletes go broke three years after they stop playing? I want to help them hold on to their money. I mean, I know about budgets.

I'm a hustler, baby; I sell water to a well!

When I came into the music, I was forced to be a CEO. I was forced to be an entrepreneur; I was forced to... because I was looking for a deal. I didn't have this grand scheme of starting a record company and then morphing into a clothing empire.