Kanye West Quotes

Today I will realize that I'm powerless over other people's expectations of me. I'll think about what I want and consider that how I respond to others' needs will affect the course of my life. I will own my own power and choose the course that's right for me.

I never liked to be pigeon-holed and I never liked people to think that they know who I am. I like to keep people guessing.

I used to spend so much time reacting and responding to everyone else that my life had no direction. Other people's lives, problems, and wants set the course for my life. Once I realized it was okay for me to think about and identify what I wanted, remarkable things began to take place in my life.

I'm not interested in turning anybody on to anybody that I'm turned on to... if people want to find things, they find them themselves.

I often feel like saying, when I hear the question 'People aren't ready,' that it's like telling a person who is trying to swim, 'Don't jump in that water until you learn how to swim.' When actually you will never learn how to swim until you get in the water. And I think people have to have an opportunity to develop themselves and govern themselves.

More and more people are beginning to feel that there must be another way of thinking, perceiving, and acting. And perhaps the beginning of another way of looking at the world is to re-evaluate all of our beliefs. It is, after all, our beliefs that determine what we are, experience, and expect. When we are willing to take a new look at our own beliefs, we then have an opportunity to begin rediscovering who and what we are and to redetermine our true purpose on Earth.

I'm fascinated by what makes up a self, how one becomes a self, how much is it an answer to others and how much is it an essence of self. We learn how to be people from other people. Then you think - what's personal freedom? Is self-creation possible? This book is dedicated to a friend of mine who really did re-create herself. I didn't do that - I stayed in the circus and am a circus performer like my parents were. I did what I was raised to do - I'm glad I did but I'm fascinated by the people who managed to do something else. I was always very curious about other people.

We [people] have a teacher! The teacher is ourselves! We already know everything we need to know - our challenge is to discover that we know it. Turning to gurus, I think, we become guru-dependent, no different from drug-dependent, alcohol-dependent - needing an outside force to control our lives.

Figure out who you are separate from your family, and the man or woman you're in a relationship with. Find who you are in this world and what you need to feel good alone. I think that's the most important thing in life. Find a sense of self because with that, you can do anything else.

I don't think anybody can really sit down and decide that their mission in life is to make people think. I think their mission in life is to leave people alone!

It's nice to be able to be whoever you want to be. I moved to New York for that reason. I think I am a very good example of how you really can do whatever you want to do without having any kind of prerequisite experience of any of kind of connection. None of my family members came from this world.

Question authority; think for yourself. Talk to people, do things unrelated to school - to come up with your own framework for living. The world is too complex and people are too different to be overly prescriptive about the details.

You should have the opportunity to be more than one person with different people because you have that within you. It's not like you're faking it. If everyone knows you so well and can always get a hold of you, then you're stuck to this thing that people think you are. You should have the opportunity to reinvent yourself. Because you do. Naturally.

Whoever has not two-thirds of his time to himself, is a slave.

I think there is clearly a connection between free time and procrastination. The more you have of the former, all things being equal, the more likely you are to procrastinate.

Decisions are made by people who have time, not people who have talent.

When you leave here today and commence the next stage of your life, you can follow someone else's script, try to make choices that will make other people happy, avoid discomfort, do what is expected, and copy the status quo. Or you can look at all that you have accomplished today and use it as fuel to venture forth and write your own story. If you do, amazing things will take shape.

I think the greatest thing about being an actor is that you can become other people. ... You have the opportunity to explore ... alternative ways of living for a brief time.

I am not the kind of person that wants to enforce my wants, likes, desires, on everybody else. I have no desire that everybody like what I like. I have no desire everybody say what I want to hear said. I have no desire everybody stop whatever they're doing and listen to what I have to say. I have no desire that everybody agree. No, that's not true. I do wish everybody agreed, but I'm not gonna sit around and force that on people.

The most successful people have the same twenty-four hours in a day that you do.

I think people will become more and more aware that we are all more than we seem.

Live life on your own path. Everybody's got something different. You can't keep up with all those people, so you better keep up with yourself.

I think that ordinary people who are placed in extraordinary circumstances find themselves pushed beyond their limits, and learn new truths about themselves.