Kanye West is celebrating his 35th birthday today—and sure, the hip-hop star has made some mistakes in the past (TMZ cameras have been smashed, Taylor Swifts have been upstaged, and an Olsen twin may or may not have been hooked up with on this day last year), but West is only five years away from 40 now. He’s a smitten, one-woman man and, minus a tiny kerfuffle with a laser-wielding fan at a concert this week, the rapper has mostly managed to stay out of negative headlines these days. Have the years made Yeezy wiser? We turn to his Twitter feed to see Kanye’s rules for living in action—in 140 characters or less.
On responsibility:
“I hate when I’m on a flight and I wake up with a water bottle next to me like oh great now I gotta be responsible for this water bottle”
On the value of privacy:
“Sometimes I push the elevator close button on people running towards the elevator. I just need my own elevator sometimes, my 7 floor sanctuary”
On diversity:
“Man… ninjas are kind of cool… I just don’t know any personally.”
On giving credit where credit is due:
“I would like to thank Julius Caesar for originating my hairstyle”
On hardship:
“Fur pillows are actually hard to sleep on”
On fielding tough questions:
“I know everybody at Rolling Stone had one question on there mind... and the answer is... yes, the shoes are Dreis”
On disappointment:
“I specifically ordered persian rugs with cherub imagery!!! What do I have to do to get a simple persian rug with cherub imagery uuuugh”
On aesthetics:
“Sometimes I get emotional over fonts”
On knowing your strengths:
“I make awesome decisions in bike stores!!!”
On professionalism:
“Never do coke with an intern ... they may not be 21”
On looking good:
“She asked when is fashion week.... uuuum... I thought it was every week??!!”
On mathematics:
“My favorite unit of measurement is ‘a shit load.’”
On productive use of all 140 characters in a tweet:
“hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahah aaand 140”
On making small talk:
“No seriously ... I said my teeth are real diamonds... these are not fronts... I replaced my bottom row of teeth with diamonds”
On how to ring in the New Year (tweeted on Jan 1, 2011):
“ASS ON THE FLOOR”
On online etiquette:
“You can basically say anything to someone on an email or text as long as you put LOL at the end”
On humility:
“I have started a new company and I’m so excited about the name.... it’s got the best name ever of all companies of all time!!!....”
On… we’re still figuring this one out:
“I just threw some kazoo on this bitch”
