“I always feel like it's two key ingredients when it comes to following...” — J. Cole Quote

“I always feel like it's two key ingredients when it comes to following your dreams, making something happen that the average person deems difficult. If you truly believe it, that's step one. Step two, is, you know, the hard work that goes along with it.”

“I was just a goofy little funny kid, who was always getting sent to the principal. It wasn't serious because I was smart. I wasn't like a true troublemaker, just rambunctious - like, talkative and trying to be funny. That was me in middle-school.”

“I pay attention to lyrics and I know what rap fans care about. I try to write for the average listener and I'm conscious of the mainstream without selling out.”

“Producing all my own songs and refusing to go to the hot producer. That's the biggest risk I've taken so far.”

“One day, I'll be listening to a bunch of Ray Charles, the next day it's nothing but Red Hot Chili Peppers. The next day it might be Tupac all day.”

“I had a lot of resistance, and not just to fame. I was always conscious of not changing.”

“Dream in a pragmatic way.”

“Historically, and even now, women have been asked to give up on their dreams way more than men, mostly - because it's sort of like you're supposed to once you become a wife and mother. That's a generalization; that's what the mentality has been.”

“Like all young reporters - brilliant or hopelessly incompetent - I dreamed of the glamorous life of the foreign correspondent: prowling Vienna in a Burberry trench coat, speaking a dozen languages to dangerous women, narrowly escaping Sardinian bandits - the usual stuff that newspaper dreams are made of.”

“Dreams are not without meaning wherever thay may come from-from fantasy, from the elements, or from other inspiration.”

“In the face of postwar austerity, hundreds of brides-to-be across the country sent Princess Elizabeth their clothing coupons so that she could have the dress of their dreams.”

“Dreams do come true, if we only wish hard enough, You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it.”