Smith: "And where I excel is ridiculous, sickening, work ethic. You know, while the other guy's sleeping? I'm working."

Smith: "I've always considered myself to be just average talent and what I have is a ridiculous insane obsessiveness for practice and preparation."

Smith: "For me, there is nothing more valuable than how people feel in a movie theater about a movie."

Smith: "If it was something that I really committed myself to, I don't think there's anything that could stop me becoming President of the United States."

Smith: "The first step is you have to say that you can."

Smith: "We tend to think of our personalities as fixed and solid… But the reality is, most of the things that we think of as us are learned habits and patterns, and entirely malleable… What you think of as your 'self' is a fragile construct…"

Smith: "I've trained myself to illuminate the things in my personality that are likable and to hide and protect the things that are less likeable."

Smith: “We spend money that we do not have, on things we do not need, to impress people who do not care.”

Smith: “Don't chase people. Be yourself, do your own thing and work hard. The right people - the ones who really belong in your life - will come to your. And stay.”

Smith: "I'm a student of patterns. At heart, I'm a physicist. I look at everything in my life as trying to find the single equation, the theory of everything."

Smith: "I have always been less concerned about someone’s immediate feelings than I have been about their overall well-being. People in my life have consistently complained about feeling unconsidered by me… I don’t trust feelings…"

Smith: "In black neighborhoods, everybody appreciated comedy about real life. In the white community, fantasy was funnier. I started looking for the jokes that were equally hilarious across the board, for totally different reasons."

Smith: "I know how to learn anything I want to learn. I absolutely know that I could learn how to fly the space shuttle because someone else knows how to fly it, and they put it in a book. Give me the book, and I do not need somebody to stand up in front of the class."

Smith: "I mean, I'm very serious with my kids about them comprehending the intricacies of global finance."

Smith: "I don't know what my calling is, but I want to be here for a bigger reason. I strive to be like the greatest people who have ever lived."

Smith: "In my mind, I've always been an A-list Hollywood superstar. Y'all just didn't know yet."

Smith: "If you're not willing to work hard, let someone else do it. I'd rather be with someone who does a horrible job, but gives 110% than with someone who does a good job and gives 60%."

Smith: "I love producing. I am loving doing that. I think that is my most natural space in the business. I just love producing or editing and that's where I thrive."

Smith: "I was a weird kid. Kinda skinny, sorta goofy, with a bizarre taste in clothes… A side effect of being lost in a fantasy life was that I had a lot of eccentric ideas about what was fly, fashionable, or funny… Kids would make fun of me and tease me mercilessly, but I didn’t understand why. “These boots are dope!” And the more they laughed, the deeper my commitment to cowboy boots grew… It didn’t matter what they thought, because to me, I was hot… People would tell me how I was supposed to be, and it just didn’t make any sense. I felt like their rules didn’t apply to me."

Smith: "So if you stay ready, you ain't gotta get ready, and that is how I run my life."

Smith: "Throughout life people will make you mad, disrespect you and treat you bad. Let God deal with the things they do, cause hate in your heart will consume you too."

Smith: "I should be quiet to better observe and understand the people and circumstances around me…"

Smith: "My imagination is my gift… a white-water-rapids ride of possibilities and potential… and all the silly, smart, spectacular sh*t I make up."

Smith: "We all want to be in love and find that person who is going to love us no matter how our feet smell, no matter how angry we get one day, no matter the things we say that we don't mean."

Smith: "Money and success don't change people; they merely amplify what is already there."

Smith: “Never lie, steal, cheat, or drink. But if you must lie, lie in the arms of the one you love. If you must steal, steal away from bad company. If you must cheat, cheat death. And if you must drink, drink in the moments that take your breath away”

Smith: "The things that have been most valuable to me I did not learn in school."

Smith: “Fear is not real. The only place that fear can exist is in our thoughts of the future. It is a product of our imagination, causing us to fear things that do not at present and may not ever exist. That is near insanity. Do not misunderstand me danger is very real but fear is a choice.”

Smith: "Traditional education is based on facts and figures and passing tests - not on a comprehension of the material and its application to your life."

Smith: "A rapper is about being completely true to yourself. Being an actor is about changing who you are."

Smith: "It's quite highly possible that I have peaked. I mean, I just can't imagine what else I could do beyond this. It's really a bittersweet kind of feeling."