Wale quotes:

I used to switch up my cologne every two to three months, get a new wave - Dolce, Versace, Burberry. But Black Orchid, that joint stayed. That's the smell of beauty that stays on you... and girls love Tom Ford.

I worked at a hot dog place, a bagel place, the Jersey Store and the hottest fashion joint around. I was getting too famous to work there anymore. I was almost showing up as a joke. I made $2,000 on my show the previous night and I'm going to go shopping during my five-hour shift.

Not to sound corny, but intelligence is big. Everything fades, and everything can be modified. But intelligence is something you can't fake. I'm not even talking about whether you can read a thesaurus backwards. But there is a beauty in common sense.

Not to sound bad, but some girls are dumb. It's because they spend so much of their life trying to have the right look. On the other hand, some girls are just really smart. There are girls you can have conversations with that are healthy conversations. You can argue real life issues and solve problems together. That is what makes a woman sexy.

However, people need to understand that it ain't that deep to try and convince people of what your persona is. You are who you are, and what you are will show in time. What you aren't can be hidden, but eventually it will come to light. Long story short: rappers should never take themselves too seriously.

I'm fortunate enough to be living my dreams and a lot of other peoples' dreams.

Every artist is supposed to get emotional. You're painting pictures of emotions.

If someone doesn't have a reason to not like you in America, they talk politics or religion. Then they get to hate you and we get to be enemies.

We lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Northwest D.C. I was essentially raised by a Panamanian man and a Jamaican woman. That's why I have such a fascination with Jamaican food.

I'm very proud of my Nigerian heritage. I wasn't fortunate enough to be raised in a heavy Nigerian environment, because my parents were always working. My father was with D.C. Cabs and my mother worked in fast food and was a nurse.

I'm learning as I go. I don't know everything. I never had anybody to look at, nobody ever taught me, and where I'm from I didn't have any famous role models.

I dated a lot, but I never really had anyone who was worthy of an anniversary. And most girlfriends never made it to a year, anyway.

I'd love a super human memory. My memory has never been good.

I don't be remembering women that I've met before. I don't remember people as a whole. It's crazy. A lot of times, people get in their feelings, like, 'You don't remember me?!'

When we were in D.C. my daddy used to cut his hair with a bowl. Crucial. If you're African, Haitan, Jamaican or even more poor than the people in the project, you'll know about that.

I dated all these girls and ended up not liking them and thought to myself, 'What was it that all of them had in common?' They had too much time on their hands. Even though they were pretty, they lacked something. A woman could be less attractive but with ambition and drive, that's the most beautiful thing.

All the rappers my age are getting Audemars and Rolexes. I want to find my own thing. That's why I travel the world - for me, that's my B-side, why we go places. I have a Hublot on from time to time but I want a home base watch - something that's elegant but has got a little pizzazz to it.

Basically, the Internet is just the way now. It's the end-all, be-all of self-promotion. It's not like you got to burn CDs and pass them out or sell them. The Internet is a tool that reaches billions and billions of people. It's like a no-brainer to tie it in with self-promotion, or even label promotion.

I've become a workaholic. When the shows slow down and there's no press and I can get my time to myself in the studio with my music, I get into this zone, man. I enter this incredible space where I'm just making music. And I feel like I can work with anybody - with Elton John, with Hanson - and I can make something incredible.

Making love is, simply put, poetry in motion.

I've seen all types of women. Celebrity girls I've dated and regular 9 to 5 girls. I've had shows where married women have tried to follow me to my hotel. My perception of women isn't very ignorant because I've seen a lot.

Everything's pretty consistent in the industry, you know. There's a couple of naysayers, whatever, people who don't agree. But for the most part a lot of people believe in the new class of MC's that coming to the game.

You can be a rapper born and raised in go-go music, violence, drugs, crack, Reagonomics, and still, if you hear 'Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,' you're going to find a way to hum along. Guilty pleasures? It don't matter. Sue me - I like the song. To dance to it is another matter.

I speak my mind. That's what we loved Tupac for.

I'm a black man in the United States of America, so I always feel like there's a target on me.

A lot of my female fans discovered me through the passion I have for bettering myself. Not to say the dudes don't, but my female fan-base is based off women who want to do better.

I used to have a real passion for writing, but not so much anymore - probably because I do too much of it.

I come from a place, with all due respect, who's never had a music star in hip-hop. So the odds is already against me.

As much as I don't want to admit it, my fans are the only ones that can hurt my feelings when they're not pleased with what I'm presenting. I want it to be perfect for them. I want them to have a different sense of pride in my music.

I put my foot in my mouth sometimes. I'll be the first to admit it.

D.C.'s a tough place to get love unless you're from D.C. It's like everybody hates you here. The only black person that everyone can agree on is Obama.

The Web is the new way to figure out who's hot and what's not. You can't let TV dictate because it's so polished, so political. It is what they want you to know. The Internet is the raw.

Initially, I felt like my duty was to just keep it positive and be positive and sometimes I crack in that. We're human. I'm imperfect at times and that was just me being imperfect at that one point.

I'm not really caught up with celebrity women. I think a regular girl that goes to school or works at a Complex or Spin or Blender or whatever, one of those magazines. She'd probably be flyer to me than the person she's writing about.

Maybe they just like me because they like me, and they don't like me because they feel like they have to like me because they like this person or that person.

It's ironic how I drop some 'DOUGH' (Doh) when I got them Homer Simpsons.

Failure is not an option. Success is just a process.

Riding in another drop, ain't talking Enterprise They try to see me, get diabetes from humble pie

You don't necessarily pick the singles that you want when you're making a record, but for the most part it's the same process. You're the artist - you make the music that you want to make.

In terms of 'Seinfeld', I think there's lot of reality in a show that's supposed to be about nothing.

There's no way you can win when you're the president; you've got to be the scapegoat for America's issues.

I'm a regular person. I know a lot of people love being famous. I don't like it. I'm just chillin'. YouknowwhatI'msayin'?

Sometimes I'm happy - you can tell via Twitter. Sometimes I'm pissed off - you can tell via Twitter. I just think, at the end of the day, I don't want them to see me as a celebrity; I just want them to see me and say, 'He's like a regular person at his job right now who's mad.'

I could have easily got T-Pain or anybody like that, but let me just get somebody very left. That'll wake them up. Gaga. She's never done a rap record before. Pay attention. It's a method to my madness.

I'm insecure about things. I'm not afraid to say it, though. Even when my publicist is like, 'Go on the red carpet,' I don't wanna go.

Not to sound corny, but intelligence is big. Everything fades, and everything can be modified. But intelligence is something you cant fake. Im not even talking about whether you can read a thesaurus backwards. But there is a beauty in common sense.

I don't wanna sound pretentious talking about myself.

I'm never satisfied, man. I'm Virgo. We overanalyze and we're never satisfied. So I'm gonna keep going 'til the wheels fall off.

I don't want to be one of those guys that you see who made $4 million, invested $3.5 million, and now you work at Wendy's.

No days off. I'm a workaholic.

The ability to make somebody feel something: that's art. However you look at it, whether you're an author, a painter, a singer, a rapper, a spoken-word artist - art.

I never understood the idea that I was a 'backpack rapper.' I think that's a lazy way that people started thinking. They like saying that because I got dreads. I look like I belong a certain place, so it's easy to put everything in a box.

I like David Beckham just because of his lifestyle. He don't ever need to score another goal again. How many times has he been on the cover of GQ?

I want to be on a show that's not sensitive to racial jokes; I want to be on one where they call me everything and I call them right back. There's blatant racism going both ways. That's what we need.

I'm at like 325 pairs right now, give or take. But I've given away about 200 pairs of sneakers. I'm not as big of a collector as I used to be, because I think the game just got weird. Everybody likes to collect now, so it's kind of corny. But I got the essentials.

My dream tour would be like, me, Cole, Drake, Sean, Meek. I think that would be dope, something like that; big venues.

There are certain things that can be asked that get me excited. It's never a thing where I think I'm too good, I'm just the type of person who likes to be enlightened. I don't like to go through the motions.

I never had money; I like nice things, but I don't let that run my life. At the same time, I have to let something drive me... so now I let the money drive me.

I've always been a Nike person.

I can take an opinion, but I don't like when you try and spew hate and contaminate the way other people think. I feel like I'm one of the people that's always made music for the common man. That's why I don't really live my life the way I could. I don't stunt as much as I could stunt, 'cause that's not who my music is for.

Hip-hop is all about impact, baby. You can sell records, you can be two-times platinum, you can be gold... but if you lame, you lame, man. We try to provide the exact opposite of that. It's style, individuality, confidence. We exude that.

The first thing that's important is to really have people believe in you. If you have that, you can do anything.

My job is to inspire the people, to be on top of my game and push my culture forward.

All I'm saying is like, spoil me with your consistency Always remain the same you and you won't have to worry about a different me

Ambition is priceless, its something that's in your veins.

Charles is Charles. Wale is Wale. It's two separate entities that have nothing to do with each other and probably will never have anything to do with each other and I wish him the best.

I hope everybody thinks they've got the best album. I wouldn't have put mine out if I didn't think it was the best.

I just wanna affect the culture and wanna be able to support young people with goals that aren't just limited to rapping and producing.

I understand that in the industry, a lot of it isn't real. Which is a difficult thing. Where I come from a lot of people are straightforward and I've had to learn how to not say exactly what I feel. Sometimes it gets frustrating being a person who says what he feels and what his heart is telling him. Every once in a while I fall into letting the industry get the best of me and not just saying exactly what I feel.

I wanna meet the person who wrote the Burlington Coat Factory thing, but that's cool. I would love to understand it more, but everything is good.

I want people to be like, 'Your album's just as good as Kendrick [Lamar]'s or Esperanza Spalding or Beck. I work just as hard as them.

If I woke up tomorrow and didn't have a dolla, as long as I have my heart, I can get it all over.

I'm just so happy and proud of everybody and what everybody's doing. From Curren$y doing decent numbers with the independent, digital release; from Asher selling 1.1 million-plus on iTunes with the single and almost at 200,000 [albums sold] now; Cudi got almost 4,000 BDS's a week; Mickey Factz doing the Rock The Bells tour; Blu signed a deal shortly after; Ace Hood had two very successful singles, another album getting ready to drop. Everybody's doing their thing, man.

I'm just trying to make the best music I can possibly make and represent the new class or whatever. Myself and Cudi and Asher and B.o.B. That's all I can do at this point.

It's something to be Great, It's nothing to be Famous

Jay-Z's my favorite rapper, but why can't I aspire to be better than him?

Life without dreaming is a life without meaning.

May the optimism of tomorrow be your foundation for today.

Mix-tapes are something that have been going on for a while. They've been pretty important to hip-hop. It's the way we advertise our music to the public for free.

Most artists should be able to make the album that they want. You don't necessarily pick the singles that you want when you're making a record, but for the most part it's the same process.

One thing Jay z told me that always sticks with me, is that, the album is never how you viewed it to be.

Some interviewers aren't even interested. They're just doing it because they gotta do it. Life is nothing without passion. Whatever you're doing, at least be passionate about it because I'm passionate about what I'm doing. I'm passionate about the words I'm saying right now. Just be passionate. When the interviews is passionate, it's more conversational and we're not covering the same ground.

Sometimes I'm just a little bit too honest. There was some things that were going on behind the scenes that I didn't like because it's not what hip-hop is about. Hip-hop is about honesty and it's about being real to the people, and I kinda felt like there's some instances where some artists aren't 100% honest with the people. Their integrity is lacking sometimes. And sometimes it comes out.

The Loudest person in the room, is usually the brokest

There's a lot of real unity - and a lot fake unity, sadly. I think a lot of people are going to get an opportunity to pursue greatness and pursue careers outside of D.C. Not everybody is going to make it. I think there's a connotation that there's a lack of rappers out there.

When you're just reading a note card but when you're just reading a note card and it doesn't even feel real, it's difficult at times. But I have no problem doing interviews. So I have absolutely no problem doing interviews.

You never wanna see yourself there. Like, ever. I'd rather go to jail than see myself on Step Your Rap Game up because I take a lot of time with my stuff.

You niggas so-so like a seamstress.

You're the artist - you make the music that you want to make.