One lived in the impression that nobody could ever compete with the 'Nutcracker' or 'A Christmas Carol.'

A Schubert song, the A-major chord at the opening of Wagner's 'Lohengrin' - such incredible beauty is a mystery, the divinity of music.

Attack is only one half of the art of boxing.

I used to love to draw. I didn't want to go to art class because I felt that would be too corny when I was young, but architectural drafting was the cool thing to do because there was more precision. It taught me a lot about building and structures and doorways and frames and windowsills.

There's never really been a real hood Christmas movie.

I remember wishing there was snow in L.A. And how jealous we used to get of those Christmas specials with kids playing in the snow.

'Boyz-n-the-Hood' was actually supposed to be written for Eazy's group. He had a group out in New York called Home Boys Only, called HBO. One of them looked like LL Cool J. Eazy wanted to write a song for them, a street song, like what we were doing on the mix tapes. So when I wrote it, it was too West Coast for them.

I love music. It's freedom, a way to deal with pent-up frustration.

Music is where I have the most creative freedom, but I love producing. To me, that's kind of where all the action is. You get a chance to have your hands in every aspect of a film. From picking a director, sometimes picking a writer, to the actors, the wardrobe, set design, editing, music, and marketing.

What I learned from architectural drafting is that everything has to have a plan to work. You just can't wing it. I can't get all the materials I need for a house and just start building. Whether it's a career, family, life - you have to plan it out.

South Central is just who I am. Even though I have a nice house, nice family, the rest of my generation is still in South Central L.A. My cousins, my brothers, my sisters, they don't wanna move out.

I don't get nothing but love. In every ghetto all over the world. Nothing but love. They respect that I came outta there and I'm doing it the right way. You can't do nothing but respect that.

I have great people, smart people that are around me and we love the challenge. I guess it's like climbing a mountain or building a building. It's a challenge but you love every challenge that it brings or presents itself.

I do what I do. You like it, great. You don't, go listen to somebody else. I'm stickin' with the people who stuck with me.

I think rap music is brought up, gangster rap in particular, as well as video games, every other thing they try to hang the ills of society on as a scapegoat.

Truth is the ultimate power. When the truth comes around, all the lies have to run and hide.

I was a very interested arts student, I was always into that part of school and when I got into high school I went into architectural drafting. It gave me an understanding of how to build things and it's really helped me put things in perspective. With my music and my movies, to me it's all art.

It's not like I'm the first man ever to do this, y'know? You gotta go back to Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby and Sammy Davis Jr. Those are people who've done music well and movies well, and y'know, Frank Sinatra and Elvis and all these dudes have made the transition. I don't know about Elvis, 'bout doin' 'em good, y'know? It's nothin' new.

It's funny how people who ain't never been down there can think that America is so fair and that we should be alright. It's funny that the people who have their foot on our neck are telling us, 'Get up. What's wrong with you?'

Don't worry about being a star, worry about doing good work, and all that will come to you.

Sports without music is just a game. Music makes it entertaining.

Sports without music, it's nothing but a game. Music adds the emotion.

Music has done a lot to enhance the emotions of sports. It's played in arenas. Whenever there is footage cut together they're always using music. And it goes together, you know.

Our records, if you have a dark sense of humor, were funny, but our records weren't about comedy. They were about protests, fantasy, confrontation and all that.

I'm trying to cut down a little on eating, on sodium, keep my blood pressure down, which is tough. Because I love food! I do, but it's unfair how everything that's bad for you tastes so good, and all the good stuff, veggies and green things, doesn't match up.

Some people are born for Halloween, and some are just counting the days until Christmas.

Vampires have become tragic or romantic figures. Vampire are largely seduction tales. They're no longer the scary creature in the dark.

We watch a romantic comedy because we want to cry, say, or an action movie so we can participate in heroics. Horror's different. It can hit you with a moment of revulsion so hard you might want to erase the last five minutes of your life, please.

I love spending time with my family and friends during the holidays, and my favorite holiday tradition would be the pozole that my mom makes almost every Christmas. It's the best!

My favorite holiday memory was sitting at home all day in my pajamas during winter break for school watching a bunch of old Christmas movies like 'Jack Frost' and 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer' with my siblings and parents.

I think confidence is a true form of beauty.

I want a guy who's going to be accepting of - one, my big 'ol, loud Mexican family - and also my career, because it's a lot. I don't want someone who's like... 'Oh, you don't have time for me'. Like, I want somebody who's sure of himself and gonna be like, 'Okay, you go do your thing, and when you come back, we're good.'

There are days I'm feeling lazy, and my mom will remind me, 'Beyonce also only has 24 hours during the day.' That always keeps me going.

If I can, I love staying in pajamas all day and watching movies and eating good food.

I'm nosey, and I have a great imagination. So it's not necessarily things I have to go through, but it's things people I know or my family is going through, and I hear about it, and I think, 'That sounds like a great song.'

Giving back is the right thing to do, whether it's donating clothing or even just a smile to someone who needs it.

When I get out of work early, or if I have some time before I go into the studio, I go to Disneyland for a few hours with my siblings. We just have fun, go on all the rides together, and eat all of the good food.

My interest is in completing an image that is spectacular beyond belief. My fidelity is to the image and the art and not to the bragging rights of making every stroke on every flower. I'm realistic.

The beauty of art is that it allows you to slow down, and for a moment, things that once seemed unfamiliar become precious to you.

There's something really cool about taking oily coloured paste and pushing it around with these hairy sticks and making something that looks like you. That's the magic of painting.

Artists should be able to thrive and allow their ideas to flourish as much as those in biotechnology or finance.

There is something that always will be true about painting and sculpture - that in order to really get it, you have to show up. That is something that is both sad and kind of beautiful about it. It remains analog. It remains special and irreducible.

It's sad, the enslavement of the black underclass to designer labels - we're an age that cares more about Versace than Vermeer.

I started making work that I assumed would be far too garish, far too decadent, far too black for the world to care about. I, to this day, am thankful to whatever force there is out there that allows me to get away with painting the stories of people like me.

You have to be careful about over-politicizing the utterances of people of colour because, oftentimes, there's poetry that seeks to go beyond that narrative.

The erotic and the art historical imagination is something that gets very little play when people talk about my work, and when they rarely do, they try to problematize it.

The real art of conducting consists in transitions.

The point is not to take the world's opinion as a guiding star but to go one's way in life and working unerringly, neither depressed by failure nor seduced by applause.

If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.

In its beginnings, music was merely chamber music, meant to be listened to in a small space by a small audience.