Top 163 Quotes & Sayings by will.i.am

Pop is the most competitive form of music there is. You are always fighting to be adopted and accepted by the masses, and it's always shifting.

Traveling in Europe made me understand that America has an island mentality: No one exists except us. There's a whole other world out there, but most Americans - all they know is America, the marketing plan.

It should be mandatory that you understand computer science.

We need creative people working with broadcasters, making smart content to inspire people to be geniuses.

If you listen to the songs I write, they are the most ADHD songs ever. They have five hooks in one and it all happens in three minutes.

Disco is the first technology music. And what I mean is that 'disco' music is named after discs, because when technology grew to where they didn't need a band in the clubs, the DJ played it on a disc.

You know, the Super Bowl is so fresh that every single commercial is even on, you know, some next-level entertainment.

You know, I do music. If you look under the hood of the industry I'm in, it's all based on technology. From radio to phonographs to CDs, it's all technology. Microphones, reel-to-reels, cameras, editing, chips, it's all technology.

I just like seeing kids inspired.

I've been truly protected by my uncles.

What Autotune allows is for people like myself and Kanye West not to depend on the singer. Back in the Fifties, the songwriter was rendered invisible. Now the songwriter is there in the forefront.

It's a rare combination to have someone who can write songs and sing well.

I like all the families in the U.K. But what I like about the idea of the royal family is... they seem like they're well educated and there's something admirable about them. And the Queen... she reminds me of my grandma.

I don't despise people.

I know people in gangs; I could have went down that route.

I'm good at thinking outside the box, so much that you realise it's not a box to begin with.

There's no chivalry in culture any more. Sometimes you meet someone who everyone says is polite and you're like, 'Wow,' but then it's like, 'Hang on, isn't everyone supposed to be polite?'

My mom's discipline worked out perfectly. I wouldn't change a thing.

I will not start an initiative until I've spent my own money. Because if I spend my own money, people who want to get on board afterwards know that I am serious about it.

There are five issues that make a fist of a hand that can knock America out cold. They're lack of jobs, obesity, diabetes, homelessness, and lack of good education.

If you really want change, you really want it to be inclusive, where everyone's included, otherwise you're just going to have more of the same in the future.

I've got all this stuff in my head at the same time as I'm doing stuff and I don't know how to stop or slow down.

If you know how to freestyle, you will never have writer's block.

I don't want to hope anymore. I don't think we should hope anymore. We hoped enough. Now we have to do. We all have to do now.

When you follow your heart, you're never supposed to do things because of what you think people might say. You do it for the opposite reasons.

You can rule ignorance; you can manipulate the illiterate; you can do whatever you want when a people are uneducated, so that goes in line with corrupt business and corrupt politics.

My attention span is very short.

There's an entry point to any relationship.

Romantic love is painful.

When you think about the guys who started Twitter, and the Google guys, and the Facebook guys and the Napster guys, and the Microsoft guys, and the Dell guys and the Instagram guys, it's all guys. The girls, they're being left behind.

I have a pro tools rig that I carry in my backpack.

Kids today aren't listening to music audio-only. They're picking up a CD and looking at the lyric sheet and wondering why the pictures aren't moving around. Who wants to do that? It's like Bam Bam Flintstone hanging with the dinosaurs vs. Elroy Jetson who's flying around space. If I'm a kid, I wanna be kicking it with Elroy.

I don't like politics.

Now that Obama's president, it changes inner-city youths. They can now not just dream to be Lil Waynes and 50 Cents, but they can now dream to be Obamas.

We all rely on technology to communicate, to survive, to do our banking, to shop, to get informed, but none of us knows how to read and write the code.

I've got Republican fans. Republicans like the Black Eyed Peas.

It's dangerous to be a child star, but it's dangerous to be a child in the ghetto, or to be a child at school being bullied.

Most of these people who are celebrities now don't do anything to deserve it, so by that fact alone, I don't want to be one.

I'm a fan of X-men.

Crime and violence are the easiest emotions to reenact.

Why shouldn't a child look to want to be a political figure, to change our nation, to lead us the right directions?

I remember when I was 19, it was pretty tough.

I don't have political agendas. I have social agendas.

There's only one type of music and that's good music, no matter what genre it is.

I was born and raised in the ghetto, on welfare, two minutes from homeless.

I have ADHD. I'll admit it.

I can procrastinate a little bit.

Hip-hop culture is probably one of the most powerful things to come out of America in a long time - everything from the music to the art to the dance to the language.

Black Eyed Peas is a chameleon group.

Music is my therapy and my straitjacket. Music keeps me sane and keeps my mind on something. It's fragile up there.

As we develop and get quicker with technology in America, it's like we're downgrading if you look at the investment in education... that's the thing that worries me.

If I didn't mould my reality then I'd still be in the ghetto where people like me are supposed to stay. You have to dream your way out of the nightmare.

Hip-hop is limiting itself and that also goes for editorially. Magazines and websites are the gatekeepers of what people think hip-hop is, but they actually end up limiting what hip-hop can be.

I don't follow waves or trends or emotions.

If my mind's not trying to fix something or create something, I don't know what to do. It just throws me off.

If you are a chef, no matter how good a chef you are, it's not good cooking for yourself; the joy is in cooking for others - it's the same with music.

If Apple's a technology company in the music industry, why can't somebody in the music industry make technology?

I don't want to preach to people.

There's nothing wrong with white if it's all right.

How about no one's ever going to outsell Michael Jackson at selling records because the record industry is over. Game over. There's no more record stores. With no more record stores there's no more pressing plants. With no more pressing plants, there's no more charts.