Lamar: "Since day one, since the first time I touched the pen, I wanted to be the best at what I do."

Lamar: "But when you get into the world of songwriting, and making material that’s universal, you gotta be hands on and know the different sounds and frequencies, what makes people move, what melodies stick with you, taking the higher octaves and the lower octaves and learning how to intertwine that in a certain frequency, how to manipulate sound to your advantage."

Lamar: "The best way to describe myself would be...unpredictable."

Lamar: "I'm a person of my own opinions, that's how I was raised. I speak what I feel... A lot of people feel the same way but they're scared to talk. They're really scared of the truth - they only want half of the truth. I've been living like that - forever in fear - but I know what to say and how to say it now. I ain't scared of myself. Y'all may be scared; I'm not scared."

Lamar: “I guess that can go back to when I was a kid. It felt like I was always in my own head. I still got that nature. I’m always thinking. I’m always meditating on the present or the future.”

Lamar: "I think my worst problem is actually living in the moment and understanding everything that's going on. I feel like I'm in my own bubble."

Lamar: "I can sometimes cut the whole world off to write a verse that is perfect to me. I could be in the studio all day and turn the phone off and completely zone out, because I feel like this was what I was chosen to do. And I can't let anyone get in between that."

Lamar: "The best thing is to always keep honest people around, because when you have a bunch of yes men around that know that you're making a mistake but let you go on with it, that's when it ruins your mind state as an artist."

Lamar: “I always carry some type of conceptual idea inside my music, whether it’s a big concept or it’s so subtle you can’t even tell until you get to 20 listens. It’s such a huge deal to this day, seeing if an artist can still pull it off. Because there’s not too many artists who give you that in a way that feels authentic, where you say, ‘OK, this person really sat down and thought through this idea.”

Lamar: "I'm constantly thinking."

Lamar: “For me, prior to me recording, it’s 70% me just formulating ideas in my mind and 30% just collecting sounds and making sounds, prior to me actually getting in the studio. Then it’s about figuring out which angle I’m going to attack it from and how the listener is going to perceive it. These are the ideas you’re constantly, constantly thinking about, and it’s not really about going to instrumentals and bringing on beats [from producers], because I feel my greatest knack is for taking cohesive ideas and putting them on wax. So it starts with me first, with my thoughts.”

Lamar: "The worst part of success is, to me, adapting to it. It's scary."

Lamar: "At first, I was scared to show fear because you can never be sure how people will perceive you. But I dared myself to do that, to stand out. Now I'll talk about being beaten up or robbed or making a stupid decision because of a girl or whatever."

Lamar: "Whatever pressure I feel all comes from me, from within. I always was that person who was hard on myself and challenged myself no matter what I was doing, whether it was passing third grade or playing basketball."

Lamar: "We're all human at the end of the day, making mistakes. But learn from them is the key."

Lamar: “When you in music — and everybody knows this — the years are always cut in half because you always have something to do. We in the studio for four months, that go by. Now you gotta go on the road for five months, that go by. Next thing you know, five years going by and you 29 years old. You know? So I have to find a way to understand the space that I’m in and how I’m feeling at the moment. ’Cause if I don’t, it’s gonna zoom. I know. I feel it.”

Lamar: "At the end of the day, the music isn’t for me; it’s for people who are going through their struggles and want to relate to someone who feels the same way they do."

Lamar: "I don't talk about these things if I haven't lived them, and I've hurt people in my life. It's something I still have to think about when I sleep at night."

Lamar: "What separated me from all my homeboys is the fact that I didn't get caught inside the reality. I was always dreaming about doing something else or going somewhere else."

Lamar: "I always thought money was something just to make me happy. But I’ve learned that I feel better being able to help my folks, ’cause we never had nothing. So just to see them excited about my career is more of a blessing than me actually having it for myself."

Lamar: "I probably spent more time listening to albums than writing songs. But I think that gave me all the tricks in terms of wordplay, from how I pronounced my words to the actual delivery."

Lamar:  "You can't change where you from. You can't take a person out of their zone and expect them to be somebody else now that they in the record industry. It's gonna take years. Years of travelling. Years of meeting people. Years of seeing the world."

Lamar: "We look so much on color that we forget about the soul."

Lamar: "Once I looked in the mirror and decided this is who I am, and I'm not scared of who I am, and I'm not scared that I can't be like you, and I'm good with just doing me, that's when I found myself, as a man."

Lamar: "You can't have people listen to you unless you come to their world and then bring them to yours."

Lamar: "Kids don't see hate in their eyes. They see the world, and living in it to the best of their abilities. And that's where love comes from for me."

Lamar: "The more I started going through my own things in life, my faith got put to the test, and I had to believe that God is real in my heart, my lord and savior Jesus Christ, and I can't run from that. I'll always put that in my music or it just wouldn't be right. People can take it or leave it, I really don't care, because it's for me to put it on records. And I will continue to put more of a spiritual nature in my music."

Lamar: "Being where you from is a strong genetic. You can't run from it."

Lamar: "I've got an extra-specific story about Dr. Dre. I saw him when I was 9 years old in Compton - him and Tupac. They were shooting the second 'California Love' video. My pops had seen him and ran back to the house and got me, put me on his neck, and we stood there watching Dre and Pac in a Bentley."

Lamar: "People gonna be they own individuals and have they own worlds and I can't knock it."

Lamar: "No matter how much good things are going on around you, you still have them little negative things that just wanna come out in front. But you bottle them in because you have so many other great things, but they still there."

Lamar: "The message I'm sending to myself - I can't change the world until I change myself first."

Lamar: "The opposite of love? Vice. Temptation. The negative influences that we have. The bad energy that comes around us and makes us do certain things. To me, it's always been a war between the two."

Lamar: "I sit and talk to kids all day, because I feel like they carry the most wisdom."