Nicki Minaj

It’s a sport to me. I never want to get too complacent with my writing or my flow.

Do you know how many women get systematically blackballed out of their positions in an office building and can’t fight back?

If I had to describe (the past ten years) I would say ‘blessed’. Blessed and highly favoured, because the things that have happened to me have been once in a lifetime.

Boys love being bossed around by me tho…

Definitely tougher to be vulnerable. As a woman in the industry, you try so hard to remain strong and to not let your guard down. And once you let the walls down and let people see that you were a regular person who has feelings, sometimes people take advantage of that. I think that applies for everyone. It’s always a little bit nerve-racking to just completely let your guard down because you just don’t know if people are going to appreciate it. And then if they don’t appreciate it, you can feel like you did it in vain.

I feel like true icons shift music, uplift music, switch music, have the balls to take a chance.

I want to spend time with Oprah, and I don’t know what I need to do to make that happen.

You know, I get a lot of people pitching songs to me.

My role in society, or any artist’s or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.

The celebrity thing… I don’t want to sound as if I absolutely don’t want it because that’s not true. If you’re in the entertainment business, you have to be honest. There’s something alluring about it…

In my neighborhood if you’re too aggressive, you intimidate someone, they kill you. Or if you decide to be emotional and you start crying, you’re a victim. You know, the kid in the schoolyard that doesn’t want to fight always leaves with a black eye. You have to find a way to stay in the middle, somewhere where people just don’t mess with you because they know that you don’t have a problem with it if it goes there.

When people apologize to me sincerely, I accept it. It’s really never too late to right your wrongs.

My ability to turn good news into anxiety is rivaled only by my ability to turn anxiety into chin acne.

Everyone asks me about being so worried or thinking about existence as if I’m the only person who can’t understand why a tree grows the way it does or why a person is in power when they’re not that great. These are questions everyone has.

I don’t know if it was much of an interview. We just shot the breeze.

It’s a sport to me. I never want to get too complacent with my writing or my flow.

I am a big Jeff Richmond fan.

There’s no point regretting things. If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. Life’s too short to worry about things I’ve said.

It really bothers me when people don’t use coasters. Particularly on my table.

I have three other siblings, so it’s all very equal – even when I get a little cocky, which I usually do. My brother keeps me in a headlock. He says that I’m not a celebrity in this house.

[on Stephen Merchant] He’s eight foot tall, has stupid glasses, awful hair, but it makes me look good, which is why he’s in the series. We look so strange on screen together as well. The height difference is ridiculous. I want people to know that he is a freak and I’m the normal one. Don’t look at this and go, ‘What? Didn’t know Ricky was a dwarf.’ I’m not. He’s the weird one.