Drake: “Always felt like my vision been bigger than the bigger picture.”

Drake: "When it comes to knowing what to say, to charm, I always had it."

Drake: "I just have to find a way to describe it so vividly that it’s relatable, because if I don’t, if it’s not vivid enough, then no one will be able to relate to me. You sitting here in this atmosphere, you can relate to what I’m saying. But if I tried to tell you about this, I don’t know if you’d feel it the same way."

Drake: “Life can always change, you have to adjust.”

Drake: "I’m obsessed with perfection. I want to work. I don’t want to take this for granted. I don’t want to sit out here and say, well, I could stop right here and say, 'Okay. I own this. You know, it’s cool. I could stop,' but why? I don’t want to stop. I want to take advantage and make myself the best possible me that I can be. So I’m going to work in the gym two hours a day. And try and be up there on stage, looking strong, looking iconic."

Drake: “Never let success get to your head and never let failure get to your heart.”

Drake: "When I'm writing, I'm thinking about how the songs are going to play live. Fifty bars of rap don't translate onstage. No matter how potent the music, you lose the crowd. They want a hook; they want to sing your stuff back to you."

Drake: "When I think of myself, I think of Toronto. My music would never sound the way it does if it weren't for Toronto."

Drake: "I'm actually a very honest person, and sometimes I end up like, 'Man, I said too much.' It's hard for me not to tell the truth when you ask me."

Drake: “When writing the story of your life, don’t let anyone else hold the pen.”

Drake: "Reviews condition people. At the end of the day, a lot of human minds are malleable. They can be easily shaped with strong words."

Drake: "A relationship can give you a gut wrenching feeling sometimes. It's a real emotional ride."

Drake: "I feel connected to my generation through the music, but I also fear for us. We're in a very self-destructive state where we're addicted to outside opinions and we all feel like we have fans."

Drake: "I've never been reckless - it's always calculated. I'm mischievous, but I'm calculated."

Drake: "Rappers aren't the really rich ones. We all have nice houses with studios and cars, but you need a piece of someone's business to be super wealthy."

Drake: “Sometimes it's the journey that teaches you a lot about your destination.”

Drake: "I try to really capitalize off of what other rappers really can't do. There are opportunities that rappers I love simply can't get, because... you know... I don't have the tattoos; I have a different image."

Drake: “I was born to make mistakes, not to fake perfection.”

Drake: "You know, there are artists who are 35 and up that still make rap and that still works for them. I don't know if I want to be that guy."

Drake: "Surface R&B doesn't work any more. The whole heartthrob thing, songs about unrealistic love and tearing your shirt off every show - that's not really where it's at any more. It's becoming harder for those guys to sell records, and harder for them to succeed."

Drake: "To go indie is a thing. But to put an album in the stores, you need a distribution label."

Drake: "I wish that we lived in a time and a generation where people would stop viewing my honesty as overly emotional. People always act like I spend my life crying in a dark room. I don't, I'm good. I'm a man."

Drake: "I'm dying to be a great dad one day, whenever that day comes."

Drake: “It’s just, music at times can be a collaborative process, you know? Who came up with this, who came up with that – for me, it’s like, I know that it takes me to execute every single thing that I’ve done up until this point. And I’m not ashamed.”

Drake: “Everybody has an addiction, mine happens to be success.”

Drake: "When I was in my mom’s house, I had nowhere to go, no real obligations. My girlfriend at the time, if she was mad at me, my day was all fucked-up. I didn’t have anything else. And that made for some of the best music, I think, to date. Records where I felt small. That feeling is hard to capture when you’re sitting out here in a space like this. It’s really difficult for me to find something that makes me feel small."

Drake: “I’m not confrontational, but if someone challenges, I’m not going to back down.”

Drake: “It’s just channeling my mom… Like, I’d bring home an essay that I did really well on, and my mom would read it through and give me notes back – on the essay that I just scored like 94 on! So sometimes I just do that. I’ll hear people’s stuff and… I’ll just give my interpretation of how I would have done it… It’s just, literally, I’ve recognized the potential and the greatness in this piece, and I want to take my stab at it, too – which is kind of what my mom always did, you know? She was just reliving her school days. Like, she just wanted to really write the essay herself. But I had already done it, so she just kind of gave me new paragraphs and sentences and made it better.”

Drake: “I love dancehall flows, especially as of late… I pretty much won’t even rap on a beat unless it’s got some magic element of new tempo or new pocket, where I hear myself and feel like I’ve stumbled upon something new.”

Drake: “Patience is key for getting over a breakup. That, and trailing off your interaction after the breakup.”

Drake: "I respect Chris Brown. I'd like to call myself a friend - I don't know if I'm allowed to do that."

Drake: “Life is just a game in which the cards are facing down. I’m in the world where things are taken, never given how long they choose to love you will never be your decision.”

Drake: “It’s never too late to realize what you want in your life and it’s never wrong to fight for it.”

Drake: “I’ve been deprived of driving for a long time. Riding to the studio with a driver and security and stuff, you lose something… That ride was my favourite thing in the world, you know? And before that ride, it wasn’t going to the studio, it was going to my girl’s house or going wherever. Driving was just one of the most pivotal things in my writing life… Sometimes those drives are heavy, man, depending on what happened where you came from and what’s about to happen where you’re going.”

Drake: "I have an urge to communicate. I think I'm a change from what it would be like dating a normal guy who doesn't talk too much."

[On his producer, Noah “40” Shebib]

Drake: “We’ve grown a lot over the years… He used to be the guy who would track me in hotel rooms at 4 am. And now he is not that guy – I have another guy who does that… If I want to make the album I want to make, I have to go find him. I have to go sit with him, and we have to really put in effort.”

Drake: “I swear this life is like the sweetest thing I’ve ever known.”

Drake: “It’s never about toughening up. I don’t even know if that’s, like, cool, being tough and sh*t… Not being vulnerable is never gonna be my thing. I’m always going to share with you what’s going on in my life.”

Drake: "I don’t mean perfection as far as a visual image of perfection. I mean, 'perfection' to me is, I walk away from a situation and say, 'I did everything I could do right there. There was nothing more that I could do.' I was a hundred percent, like the meter was at the top. There was nothing else I could have done. You know? Like, I worked as hard as I possibly could have. That’s perfection."

[On him channeling emotions in his work]

Drake: "I’m trying to find the same feelings that I had for women when I had very little going on, which is tough."

Drake: “By the standard I hold myself and 40 to, it’s a bit broken… There’s corners cut, in the sense of fluidity and song transition, and just things that we spend weeks and months on that make our albums what they are.”

Drake: “The moment I stop having fun with it, I’ll be done with it.”

[On if he misses the pain he used to feel from an artistic standpoint]

Drake: "That’s exactly what it is. Artistically. Inspiration-wise. Knowing you don’t have any other option—you got one place to go. To your mom’s house. That’s it. Go drive home. I miss that, artistically."

Drake: "Throw em a bone and they want a steak."

Drake: "I don't want to stop. I want to take advantage and make myself the best possible me that I can be."

[On if he was thinking about his career at 15]
Drake: "Yeah, 15, 16, I mean, 17, 18, is when I was really getting into that hip hop phase, you know, and really studying the things that I needed to study as far as learning about flows and learning about lyrics."