Producing all my own songs and refusing to go to the hot producer. That's the biggest risk I've taken so far.

In marriage you got to go through the same struggles as a relationship, that's if the relationship is real, because there's a lot of non-real relationships going on in the world right now. And I think that's just because of the day and age we're in, a lot of these relationships are taking place over text messages, it's not real substance. But when you got a real one, it's already like a marriage.

Sold my soul to Satan. I've been dancing with the devil. So when you get to hell you can say you know me. I'm easily attracted by the dark side. Devil keep following.

If I'm a character, it's a biographical movie. My character is as close to me as possible. As close to being myself as possible. So my character, J. Cole, is very close to Jermaine Cole.

I truly believe that I make my path and I set my course, and where I land, at the end of the day, or the end of my career, [is] because of me. Of course, you get help along the way, and cosigns and management and opportunities and things like that but overall, the ball is in your court basically.

I feel like I'm a New Yorker because I really know the city. I actually tell the drivers where to go - I have this bad habit, I always question the drivers. I do that all the time because I feel like I know the best way, when really it's like, 'Yo, man, shut up. This dude does this every day of his life.'

When I first started rapping, when I switched my style to more like a punch line style - this is when I'm like 13 years old - and I switched it to this real wordy - I was trying to rap like Canibus and like Eminem. It was real lyrical, real wordy and punch lines and, when I would come up with these punch lines and spit 'em in these cyphers, the minute the cyphers would be like, "Ohhh" and everybody would break away, it was a new feeling for me. It was like, "Oh, yo, you see what I just did?" I was addicted to that feeling, and I still love that feeling.