小黑书PRINCE THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK

1. My name at birth was Prince Rogers Nelson.

2. I noticed that a lot of these [new] acts, they're thrust into the spotlight so quickly, they don't have time to hone their craft. We played in clubs a lot when we first started out. That's where a lot of the freaky pictures come from. You know. It was a harder, more adult audience.

3. Alicia Keys, I dig.

4. If I can stop swearing, everybody can stop swearing.

5. A lot of my stuff gets stolen.

6. They can't find out who my mom's dad is.

7. I am here today because of the golden age of the 60's, 70's and 80's of music. This is when artists played their own instuments, they wrote their own songs. They had to perform next to people like Ike and Tina Turner, Wilson Pickett, James Brown; I mean this is, you gotta have your act together.

8. I respect anyone who takes their craft seriously.

9. You can't grow if you're just treading water.

11. Hopefully the press will get to a point where there will be a law where you have to tell the truth.

12. From the beginning as I was coming into my own persona and understanding of who I was, I never talked down to my audience. When you don't talk down to your audience, they can grow with you. I give them a lot of credit to be able to hang with me this long because I've gone through a lot of changes. But they've allowed me to grow, and we can tackle some serious subjects and try to just be better human beings.——all of us.

13. The gate-keepers, they know who they are. We don't need to name names, but rest assured, they aren't musicians. They don't have anything to do with music. If you sit one of them in a room and you ask them, "What is it that you do? How did you get this job?" A lot of them came from law. A lot of them came from accounting and things like that. They're merchants basically. And it's not to disrespect them or demine their roll in any way, but at the same time, you can't expect them to know who they're signing, and sort of "gate-keeper" the music.

14. A merchant would have problem being called a "bean counter". When in fact, they know that's true.