Kanye West

I’m a blowfish. I’m not a shark, I’m a blowfish. So that perfect example about me hitting my head, it’s like a blowfish. I wasn’t coming out of my house going to a paparazzi’s house to attack them. I’m defending my family in front of my own house. I’m defending my name as someone’s screaming something negative at me. That’s a blowfish. People have me pinned as a shark or a predator in some way, and in no way am I that. I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone. I want to defend people. I want to help people.

Yeezus was extremely purposeful. And what came from Yeezus: Paparazzi are nicer to me. The entire fashion industry is nicer to me.

We’re numb. We’re numb to 500 kids getting killed in Chicago last year. We’re numb that there were dozens of police shootings in the beginning of July. We’re numb to places on the earth where we don’t live. Our life is OK, but it’s OK for other people’s lives to not be OK.

It was incredible because it was forced humility. Previously, I would’ve looked at humility as more of a negative thing.

How about dreaming out loud? How about feeling that something can happen to make the world better and inspire people? Is that OK for one second?

I don’t really get nervous, I prepare. When the music messed up in the beginning, it tapped into my nerves and when you’re nervous and vulnerable, something special and something different can happen.

If you were to really look at it, the boys are still getting more money for a lot of garbage, while the ladies are hustling and doing amazing work for less.

My number one thing is that it doesn’t just happen. You shouldn’t feel discouraged if you’re not waking up and feeling amazing about yourself. That’s not necessarily how it works. It doesn’t take one shopping spree to give you that confidence. It’s a developing process. Everyone goes at their own speed… As long as you take every opportunity to learn more about yourself and fall more in love with yourself every day, you’re doing good.

I get on really well with Katie (Leung), she’s a really cool girl.

You just have to play every scene honestly and forget about a reaction and what the audience is going to think. I think the more seriously you take something, the more funny it might be.

Freddie will have been dead for 20 years in November. I was staggered because it doesn’t seem possible that all that time has passed and I still miss him. He was my best friend, my best man. We shared so much and I owe so much to him.

There have been people I’ve warmed to over the years but, as the situation I’m in is so fleeting and transient, I’ve always known it’s going to be over kind of real quick.

Whatever the problem, be part of the solution. Don’t just sit around raising questions and pointing out obstacles.

I was making guitars and I was a sheet metal worker and if you ever see sheet metal workers’ hands, you’ve never seen so many cuts in your life.

I went to do my first big movie when I was 17. I was in South Africa for three and half months, and I was by myself.

I read while the kids play. I can see them from the kitchen window. And I’m a fast reader.

I’ve got a terrible memory – I end up repeating myself quite a lot. The only thing I can remember is that I’m going to repeat myself!

When humor works, it works because it’s clarifying what people already feel. It has to come from someplace real. You don’t just decide to destroy a person by making up stuff, and no one at SNL is writing to go after someone.

There are things that I do that feminists don’t like, and there are things that I do that they do like. I don’t label myself.

Florida, just because you’re shaped like some combination of a gun and a d*ck doesn’t mean you have to act that way.

If my fans want to do something for me when that time comes, I say, don’t waste your money on me. Help the homeless. Help the needy… people who don’t have no food… Instead of some big funeral, where they come from here and there and all over. Save it.