“I loved the fact that it happened, that it disturbed people. I loved the fact that it put those curves right inside that Hamptons house, that there’s some Hamptons husbands who had to cover that up.”

“In Paris, you’re as far as possible from the land of pleasant smiles,” West says. “You can just trip on inspiration—there are so many people here who dedicate their lives to excellence.”

West was informed that he’d be invited to a widely anticipated runway show only on the condition that he agree not to attend any other shows. “So the next day I went to the studio with Daft Punk, and I wrote ‘I Am a God,’?” West says. “Cause it’s like, Yo! Nobody can tell me where I can and can’t go. Man, I’m the No. 1 living and breathing rock star. I am Axl Rose; I am Jim Morrison; I am Jimi Hendrix.” West is not smiling as he says this, and his voice is getting louder with each sentence. “You can’t say that you love music and then say that Kanye West can’t come to your show! To even think they could tell me where I could and couldn’t go is just ludicrous. It’s blasphemous—to rock ’n’ roll, and to music.”

“I made that song because I am a god,” he says finally. He laughs for a second, then stops. “I don’t think there’s much more explanation. I’m not going to sit here and defend shit. That shit is rock ’n’ roll, man. That shit is rap music. I am a god. Now what?”

“On one end, I try to scale it back,” he says. “Because I don’t want to close any of the doors needed to create the best product possible. But my ego is my drug. My drug is, ‘I’m better than all you other motherfuckers. Kiss my ass!’?”

“For the most part, I’d rather people have one of those home videos than some of the paparazzi photos that get published,” he says. “At least I recorded the shit myself. That tape couldn’t have hurt me in any way if it came out—it could only have helped.” He finally decided against releasing it, but don’t be surprised if he changes his mind. “Now, I just do exactly what I want, whenever I want, how the fuck I want,” West says. “ ‘Fuck you’ is my message.”

He’s planning his return to fashion and has set up an atelier in Milan, but right now, he says, his priority is “absorbing as much as possible” and finding the best people in every field to work with. The idea of failure seems to serve not as a deterrent but as a stimulus. Whenever he tries something new, West observes, “people say, ‘Why do you want to destroy your name?’ But I don’t care about my name as much as I care about my ideas. I could do something completely wrong, and people could hate it, but then someone else could see it and do it completely right. And it’s a push forward for civilization.”

“I’m not a billionaire; I’m just a millionaire. But I’m the youngest guy I know who has this much interest in design and the ability to actually get some of it. So that makes me an important cog in the wheel.”

“Furniture is my superobsession now. Furniture and pornography, still. The porn thing has never left since I was in high school.

“It was like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates talking at the same time. You know which one of us was Steve.”

“You know how they say, ‘Jack of all trades, master of none’? I want to be master of all. And not even to be a jack but a king. In fact, not even a king. An ace.”

“This music is made to spark the visionaries to stand up for themselves and help the world. Because the world is fucked.”

“I’m Christian in the same way that people have issues with certain elements of Christianity. It’s like if you go into a Ralph Lauren store, maybe that buyer didn’t do the exact buy that you want, but you still really like that brand.”

“Anyone who meets me for the first time and is not slightly nervous is completely full of shit. Because when I meet people I respect, I’m nervous. When I go have lunch with Tarantino at the Chateau Marmont, I’m nervous. It’s fucking Tarantino!”

“Visiting my mind is like visiting the Hermès factory. Shit is real. You’re not going to find a *****. It’s 100,000 percent Jimi Hendrix.”

“I live a pretty interesting life. But the life that I’m living is way less interesting than what I’m thinking.”

“This is me and my mommy.”

“You should only believe about 90 percent of what I say. As a matter of fact, don’t even believe anything that I’m saying at all. I could be completely fucking with you, and the world, the entire time.”

“Even the greatest tattoo artists in the world have a few bad tattoos. And that’s Kanye West. A few of my past outfits—questionable , you know? But I’m testing. I’m discovering who I am.”