Lizzo: "I was so moved by music that I wanted to create it as well, but once you decide that's what you want to do with your life, to be successful, you have to be business-minded, too."

Lizzo: "I was like, 'OK, what can I do with this? How can I make the best of this? I wasn't supposed to survive. I wasn't supposed to make it this far. I wasn't supposed to be a millionaire. I wasn't supposed to be a sex symbol. I wasn't supposed to be on the cover of PEOPLE, but I am. So how can I make this worthwhile? How can I make this not just a flash in the pan?' "

Lizzo: "I'm not a girl who started getting into music and using my femininity to get attention. When I was getting into it, it was all pure skill."

Lizzo: “Everything in me wants to be cool and make the trendy [music] — and, keeping it real, I studied music my whole life. It’s easy for me to make, but I got to be true to myself [and ask], ‘What do I want to make, regardless of its trendy or not? What’s classic? What stands the test of time?’”

Lizzo: "I spent a lot of time star-gazing, writing, and learning languages when the other kids were doing cooler things in Detroit."

Lizzo: "I have kind of an innate ear and actually a highly skilled ear when it comes to frequency and harmony and dissonance and melody. And so for me, it's this thing that I can feel in my body. I'm almost like a tuning fork where if I hear the beat and I vibrate at the level that, you know, I'm supposed to, I know that that's what I want to get on."

Lizzo: "I don’t want to leave history in the hands of people who uphold oppression and racism. My job as someone who has a platform is to reshape history."

Lizzo: "I feel like women who are smaller aren't really given the opportunities to be body-positive or role models either because we've been conditioned to believe that women are using their bodies for the male gaze. And I think if I were slimmer, I don't think people would look to me with the same type of like, oh, wow; she's so brave; she's doing this and representing everyone - that they would - you know I'm saying? - because I'm big."

Lizzo: “You know what I want, above all things? I want people who are aware of my music right now, to believe in change.”

Lizzo: “I think [twerking] deserved being intellectualized, it deserved to have a classical etymology, it needed an origin story. It’s a Black woman thing, it was almost printed in our DNA. It disappeared and resurfaced in the 1920s, then disappeared and resurfaced in the 1980s. It’s an almost inexplicable phenomenon.”

Lizzo: "I knew a lot of girls who just wanted to be famous, and if that's your goal, that's awesome; that just wasn't enough for me."

Lizzo: "I work on myself daily to be a better person. When I react in a negative way to somebody, I sit back and think about why I did it, so I'm always working on myself, and my music is the same."

Lizzo: "The fight still isn't people of colour versus white. It's the people versus the system built to keep us down. That's the first line of the Constitution. And the system is manmade but is made of no man. Everyone, regardless of class, creed, culture and ethnicity can fight the system and help to break it down."

Lizzo: "I deserve the attention. I'm talented, I'm young, I'm hot. You know? And I've worked hard."

Lizzo: "And from being trained, I think it's easier for me to speak a language to producers, and I can speak engineer to the engineers. And I think we all just have so much fun nerding out. Like, I don't actually like being given a beat. Like, I love to be there at the conception of a song from just watching the producer put that click track on and just build from there. Like, that's my favorite part, is watching the birth of a song and being a part of the birth."

Lizzo: "I like that I'm not typical. I like that I'm called 'no-genre hip-hop.'"

Lizzo: "I feel like I've started to create my own culture of being a voice for something, and that's what people want to know about. I love that because I am a woman and because I a rap, and I look the way I look, I can connect with the demographic of people who feel like they have a voice in me."

[On Adele]

Lizzo: “She’s literally me in a different font, so it’s nice to have her.”

Lizzo: "Every time I rap about being a big girl in a small world, it's doing a couple things: it's empowering my self-awareness, my body image, and it's also making the statement that we are all bigger than this; we're a part of something bigger than this, and we should live in each moment knowing that."

[On being able to say everything she ever wanted to say on her debut studio album, Lizzobangers]

Lizzo: "I don't care if it sounds good, I don't care if it's cool or not, I'm just going to say everything that's on my chest because I can finally do it..."

Lizzo: "So where there was a wave of feminism where we were burning bras, now I'm like, my bra is in your face. You know what I'm saying? And I think that that is just a testament to human beings and how we evolve. And I think that the wave of feminism right now that's overtly sexual and in your face, I think, is just the response to where we were."

Lizzo: "And so I want to use my music as a vessel to get you where you need to go to a positive place."

[On how she considers herself just as feminist as Megan Thee Stallion]

Lizzo: "I think what's happening here is that there's different waves of feminism. And it's definitely - it's just like - it's, like, a generational thing, you know I'm saying? Like, one generation asks one thing, and then that next generation is going to ask the complete opposite of it because of the lack thereof."

Lizzo: “My movement is for everybody. My movement celebrates diversity. It’s all about inclusion. It’s all about getting our flowers and giving each person their own space to be an individual and speak up for that individuality.”

Lizzo: "Well, I've been working on music for the last, like, three years. And I made, like, three different albums, like, different - I was telling different stories. It was different sonically. Like, one was more pop. One was more, like, trap. And then we made 'Cuz I Love You.' And I think what's different about this music is that I'm just a little bit more vulnerable than I am ever before."

[On going from being a nerd in school to making a music video with Cardi B]

Lizzo: "I brought [my friend] with me to rehearsals and I'm just sitting here like 'oh my god, like I was a nerd...' Like I... you know all the people back home in 'the swat,' in 'a leaf' who are gonna see this music video. I'm in a music video with Cardi B, and I was walking through the hallways with like sweaty hair reading fantasy novels you know; a f*cking nerd - a geek - a band nerd, you know! And I cried because I was like 'what a full circle moment...' I made it, you know!"

Lizzo: "I feel like I've started to create my own culture of being a voice for something, and that's what people want to know about. I love that because I am a woman and because I a rap, and I look the way I look, I can connect with the demographic of people who feel like they have a voice in me."

[On why she makes positive music]

Lizzo: “I was like, ‘Let me start singing about my life how I want it to be.’ I write these songs because I know that I’m going to sing them over and over and over, and they’re going to be meaningful to me, and helpful to me, and they’re going to be suits of armor.”

[On why she calls herself an "anti-social extravert"]

Lizzo: "I'm an extrovert, but the anti-social me is protecting that shy version of me."

Lizzo: "There's a lot of influences that I have from Detroit that are subliminal. I mean, I spent the first 10 years of my life there. My mom and dad were born and raised there, so a lot of that rubbed off on me. When I get angry, sometimes a Detroit accent comes out."

Lizzo: "My mother and father taught me about black excellence and dynasty. They experienced racism personally, and when something like that happens to you and not around you, you develop a different perception than someone who has never experienced racism a day in their lives."

Lizzo: “Self-care is in the little moments — bathing, sweating, washing your hair. It’s in laughing so hard you can barely catch a breath, your lungs expanding on a morning jog… now more than ever we need to enjoy the quiet within ourselves.”

Lizzo: "I'm glad I'm a woman; I'm glad I'm a rapper because I get to speak to these people who did not get spoken for in this genre."

Lizzo: "I love kimonos because you can just throw them on over anything. Ever since I got my first kimono from Lane Bryant in high school and thought, 'This is amazing; I can wear it with everything!'"

Lizzo: "From a young age, I saw and placed importance on spirituality within religion."

Lizzo: “Even when body positivity is over, it’s not like I’m going to be a thin white woman. I’m going to be black and fat. That’s just hopping on a trend and expecting people to blindly love themselves. That’s fake love. I’m trying to figure out how to actually live it.”

Lizzo: "If you are confident in yourself and however you want yourself to be presented, and you're doing well and doing it because you want to do it and not because someone is pressuring you, then more power to you."

Lizzo: "If you want to help somebody, you don't sit and read them the pythagorean theorem, you don't go open encyclopedia and say 'okay well this is how you're going to feel better,' - you just hold them, you know what I mean?"

Lizzo: "Minneapolis just embraced me. There are a lot of weirdos here. It's awesome, because I'm a weirdo. Thankfully, the city embraced me with open arms. A lot about Minneapolis helped carve my musicality and open my eyes. The whole town is so open-minded compared to like, you know, Texas."

Lizzo: “I’m doing this for myself. I love creating shapes with my body, and I love normalizing the dimples in my butt or the lumps in my thighs or my back fat or my stretch marks. I love normalizing my black-ass elbows. I think it’s beautiful.”

Lizzo: "I don't look to celebrities for style anymore because I've learned the chain of command. They are being dressed by a stylist who's getting inspiration from a 16-year-old kid running the streets of Melbourne, Australia. Once I learned that chain of command, I just started taking it to the streets."

Lizzo: "Everyone looks to an artist for something more than just the music, and that message of being comfortable in my own skin is number one for me."

Lizzo: “I’m tired of the bullsh*t. And I don’t have to know your story to know that you’re tired of the bullsh*t too. It’s so hard trying to love yourself in a world that doesn’t love you back, am I right?”

Lizzo: "When we're on stage doing a song about positive body image or another about female empowerment, everyone out there is super into it and right there with us. It's been awesome. I feel like we fit right in."