Kanye West Quotations

Keep your nose out the sky, keep your heart to god, and keep your face to the raising sun.

I don't even listen to rap. My apartment is too nice to listen to rap in.

I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family it says they're looting, if you see a white family it says they're looking for food.

I am God's vessel. But my greatest pain in life is that I will never be able to see myself perform live.

Black people can be the most conservative, the most discriminating. Especially among ourselves. It wasn't white people who said all black men have to wear baggy jeans.

The concept of commercialism in the fashion and art world is looked down upon. You know, just to think, 'What amount of creativity does it take to make something that masses of people like?' And, 'How does creativity apply across the board?'

I liberate minds with my music. That's more important than liberating a few people from apartheid or whatever.

I ain't here to argue about his facial features. Or here to convert atheists into believers. I'm just trying to say the way school need teachers the way Kathie Lee needed Regis that's the way yall need Jesus.

I'm pretty calculating. I take stuff that I know appeals to people's bad sides and match it up with stuff that appeals to their good sides.

I really appreciate the moments that I was able to win rap album of the year or whatever.

My message isn't perfectly defined. I have, as a human being, fallen to peer pressure.

If you have the opportunity to play this game of life you need to appreciate every moment. a lot of people don't appreciate the moment until it's passed.

Man, I'm the No. 1 living and breathing rock star. I am Axl Rose; I am Jim Morrison; I am Jimi Hendrix.

I will go down as the voice of this generation, of this decade, I will be the loudest voice.

We all self-conscious. I'm just the first to admit it.

Know your worth! People always act like they're doing more for you than you're doing for them.

I would never want a book's autograph. I am a proud non-reader of books.

Why, if someone is good in one field can they not be accepted or given the slightest opportunity to express and be creative in other fields?

I feel like I'm too busy writing history to read it.

I don't know what's better gettin' laid or gettin' paid.

Sometimes people write novels and they just be so wordy and so self-absorbed.

You don't have to be scared of me, because I am loyal. Why are people so scared of creative ideas and so scared of truth? All I want to do is do good.

Creative output, you know, is just pain. I'm going to be cliché for a minute and say that great art comes from pain.

I would hear stories about Steve Jobs and feel like he was at 100 percent exactly what he wanted to do, but I'm sure even a Steve Jobs has compromised. Even a Rick Owens has compromised. You know, even a Kanye West has compromised. Sometimes you don't even know when you're being compromised till after the fact, and that's what you regret.

They say you can rap about anything except for Jesus, that means guns, sex, lies, video tapes, but if I talk about God my record won't get played Huh?

Thirty-three-years-old, still creating art. It's rage, it's creativity, it's pain, it's hurt, but it's the opportunity to still have my voice get out there through music.

Nobody can tell me where I can and can't go.

I refuse to accept other people's ideas of happiness for me. As if there's a 'one size fits all' standard for happiness.

I'll say things that are serious and put them in a joke form so people can enjoy them. We laugh to keep from crying.

If I was just a fan of music, I would think that I was the number one artist in the world.

I know I got angels watchin me from the other side.

I didn't want to play it boring and safe. I also didn't want to innovate too much. Second albums, man, they're even scarier than first ones.

I think I do myself a disservice by comparing myself to Steve Jobs and Walt Disney and human beings that we've seen before. It should be more like Willy Wonka... and welcome to my chocolate factory.

I was never really good at anything except for the ability to learn.

Would you believe in what you believe in if you were the only one who believed it?

But for me to have the opportunity to stand in front of a bunch of executives and present myself, I had to hustle in my own way. I can't tell you how frustrating it was that they didn't get that. No joke - I'd leave meetings crying all the time.

I am Warhol. I am the No. 1 most impactful artist of our generation. I am Shakespeare in the flesh.

It was a strike against me that I didn't wear baggy jeans and jerseys and that I never hustled, never sold drugs.

I thank Marc Jacobs so much for giving me the opportunity to design a shoe for Louis Vuitton, but the thing that broke my heart most was when they said, 'You're finished. The shoe's finished.'

Michael Jordan changed so much in basketball, he took his power to make a difference. It's so much going on in music right now and somebody has to make a difference.

People always say that you can't please everybody. I think that's a cop-out. Why not attempt it? 'Cause think of all the people you will please if you try.

I can always tell if a band has a British rhythm section due to the gritty production.

In Paris, you're as far as possible from the land of pleasant smiles.

If you see a black family, it's looting, but if it's a white family they are looking for food.

I never seen snakes on a plane

I was wearing like, a Juicy Couture men's polo shirt. We weren't there, like, ready for war

Okay, for me, first of all, dopeness is what I like the most.

I said Yo Jay, I can rap. And I spit this rap that said I'm killin' ya'll *****s on this lyrical sh*t, mayonnaise colored benz, I push miracle whips.

It is true you can be successful without [college], but this is a hard world, a real world, and you want every advantage you can have. I would suggest to people to do all that you can. When I dropped out of school, I had worked in the music industry and had checks cut in my name from record labels and had a record deal on the table, and when I wasn’t successful and Columbia said, ’We’ll call you,’ I had to go back and work a telemarketing job, go back to the real world, and that’s how life is. Life is hard. Take advantage of your opportunities.

Don't Ever fix your lips like collagen And say something when you gon' end up apologing

Look, I can be married to the most beautiful woman in the world, and I am. I can have the most beautiful little daughter in the world, and I have that. But I’m nothing if I can’t be me. If I can’t be true to myself, they don’t mean anything.

I've got a million people telling me why I can't do it. You know, that I'm not a real designer, that I'm not this. I'm not a real rapper, either!

If your job is inspiration you have to go at it at all costs.

People ask me a lot about my drive. I think it comes from, like, having a sexual addiction at a really young age. Look at the drive that people have to get sex - to dress like this and get a haircut and be in the club in the freezing cold at 3 A.M., the places they go to pick up a girl. If you can focus the energy into something valuable, put that into work ethic

If I were to write my title like going through the airport and you have to put down what you do? I would literally write ‘creative genius’ except for two reasons: Sometimes it takes too long to write that and sometimes I spell the word ‘genius’ wrong. The irony.

I understand culture. I am the nucleus.

50 is Eminem's favourite rapper... I'm my favourite rapper.

Just know that if you want to be a boxer you're going to get your face beaten constantly but then you may end up being a Mayweather or an Ali at the end of the day.

I love the fact that I'm bad at [things], you know what I'm saying? I'm forever the 35-year-old 5-year-old. I'm forever the 5-year-old of something.

I will be the leader of a company that ends up being worth billions of dollars, because I got the answers.

I've known my mom since I was zero years old. She is quite dope.

In America, they want you to accomplish these great feats, to pull off these David Copperfield-type stunts. You want me to be great, but you don't ever want me to say I'm great?

What's the main thing that makes magic magic? The fact that no one believes that it's possible.

...what I'm saying is we're making product with chitlins. T-shirts! That's the most we can make.

We culture. Rap is the new rock 'n roll. We the rockstars. It's been like that for a minute, Hedi Slimane!

It's about whatever I want to make it about. It's my world.

Because when you keep on diminishing art and not respecting the craft and smacking people in their face after they deliver monumental feats of music, you're disrespectful to inspiration, and we as musicians have to inspire people who go to work every day, and they listen to that Beyonce album and they feel like it takes them to another place.

Both this song ['Black Skinhead'], 'I Am a God' and this song were made after Hedi Slimane didn't let me into his first Saint Laurent show.

You can't look at a glass half full or empty if it's overflowing.

My goal, if I was going to do art, fine art, would have been to become Picasso or greater.

I think I'm a whole lot to handle. I definitely am, on every aspect. I'm the video director. I'm the graphics designer. I'm the rapper. I'm the visionary. I'm the music producer. I'm the executive producer. I'm just going to end it off to be poetic: I'm the future of music.

For me to say I wasn't a genius I'd just be lying to you and to myself

I see stuff from the future, and I'm such a futurist that I have to slow down and talk in the present.

George Bush doesn't care about black people... They're saying black families are looting and white families are just looking for food... they're giving the (Army) permission to shoot us.

I love the fact that I'm bad at [things].

Fur pillows are actually hard to sleep on.

Sometimes when I see a bad performance and people still clap... I wonder if they're clapping because they liked what they saw or because they're happy it's over?

Do you think there'd be a Givenchy in the hood if it wasn't for that South Park photo?

To use is necessary. And if you can't be used, then you're useless.

The same people that tell me what I ought to have is the same people asking for an autograph.

What if you're Gaudi and you know you're the best architect and everyone is saying that you're saying you're the best architect the wrong way?

Great art comes from great artists. There's a bunch of people that are hurt that still couldn't have made the album that was super-polarizing and redefined the sound of radio.

I'm the No. 1 living and breathing rock star. I am Axl Rose; I am Jim Morrison; I am Jimi Hendrix.

Fashion breaks my heart.

I don't know what's better: getting laid or getting paid. I just know when I'm getting one, the other's getting away.

People say, 'What do you mean you want to help the world, but you're so concerned about fashion?' It's illegal to be naked. It is something that is extremely important.

I don't know if this is statistically right, but I'm assuming I have the most Grammys of anyone my age, but I haven't won one against a white person.

I'm the type of rock star that likes to have a girlfriend, you know?

If anyone's reading this waiting for some type of full-on, flat apology for anything, they should just stop reading right now.

Keep rockin', and keep knockin' Whether you Louis Vuitton it up or Reebokin' You see the hate, that they're servin' on a platter So what we gon' have, dessert or disaster?

I still think I am the greatest.

I make all my own decisions and I take full responsibility.

I am not a fan of books.

No one is looking at what President Obama is wearing. Michelle Obama cannot Instagram a bikini pic like what my girl Instagrammed the other day...

I worked a telemarketing job. I always worked those because I always knew how to talk to people and I always knew how to sell because my father was a salesman. He used to sell vacuum cleaners, payroll services to companies, so that was natural for me to go into sales.

I try to get as close to a childlike level as possible because we were all artists back then.

For me giving up is way harder than trying.

I always feel like I can do anything. That's the main thing people are controlled by: thoughts and perceptions of yourself... If you're taught you can't do anything, you won't do anything

I'm not going to sit inside of a corporation for 20 years. The time is now. The time is now to express yourself. The time is now to believe in yourself.

If y'all fresh to death, then I'm deceased.