things zayn talked about on his book, a thread —

"i guess that's why i'm writing this now. not because i think i'm so great, or because the whole world deserves to know about zayn malik, but so that, if you're at all interested, you can understand a bit better why i did the things i did and where i'm at now."

"i definitely knew i wanted to make my own music - that was the only path for me - but i felt like i was adrift."

"but it's no secret that that kind of pop music really isn't my thing and towards the end of my time in the band. i was becoming more and more desperate to express my own style and write lyrics about stuff that i really believed in..."

"i wanted to be in the studio singing lyrics that resonated with me, not just repeating someone else's lines."

"whenever we made a new track together, even though it wasn't my kind of music, i would still enjoy the experience of it, playing the new mixes for our latest singles at home or in the car, really loud. over and over, thinking, 'fuck, we did that. that's us on that record."

"my head said stay but my heary said go home. so in the end, i went."

"i'm a guy who's always thinking about moving forward, what my legacy is going to be, what people will think of when they hear my name and my music."

"i want to be known as somebody who isn't afraid to do what he wants to do, no matter what other people might say or think, and to do that i've got to be in control of my career."

"now that i've got the creative freedom to be a more authentic version of myself and to release the music that i want to make, i guess i have to leave it up to my fans to find the integrity in it."

"when you're young, it feels like it's important to fit in with what everyone else is doing but now i realize that me holding back and doing different stuff were just parts of my personality - and no bad thing"

"the only thing that really pisses me off is if somebody 'quotes' me when it's something i definitely didn't say. if what i say is deliberately misconstrued, or if something like i've said is taken out of context, then i'm a bit like, 'that's not what i said.'"

"pillowtalk isn't just about sex; it's more layered than that. it's about the ups and downs of relationships. good times and bad times..."

"the idea for that song [drunk] came about when i was working with the hannides and one of them was telling me he'd just been to a music festival where everybody had got wasted. i wanted to take that vibe into a more downtime space..."

"all in all, it took around eight months to finish that one track [fool for you], but as far as i was concerned, it was worth it: i was proud that i'd written it pretty much by myself."

"... the original concept behind the song [tio] was a lot deeper. it was about wanting to see a girl for her true beauty, stripping off the layers of somebody you love and seeing them for who they truly are."

"i was always brought up to respect women, both my parents instilled that in me, and in my experience women have been the most intelligent, peaceful and positive influences in my life."

"it's only when you're away from it all, off the grid, that you realize how crazy all of our neurotic dependency on 'owning things' is."

"obviously it's cool to have people investing their time and energy in me and my music, and i appreciate it means that i've got a lot more responsibility towards those fans."

"i probably spend a good few hours every day on social media. often i don't post, but i'm looking at my followers and reading their comments. i'm not sure if that's always a good thing..."

"when i started writing mind of mine. i was finally writing for myself for the first time. at the beginning, in my head, i was just experimenting; nobody else was supposed to hear what i was coming up with."

"on january 2016, pillowtalk was released, and the reaction from the fans blew me away. [...] it was me and the people i work with most closely in this random hotel in paris. we stayed up all night, because pillowtalk was coming out at six in the morning in paris..."

"i'm always scribbling ideas for lyrics down in a notepad or on scraps of paper. i've still got all my songs, handwritten, on headed notepaper from the beverly hills hotel or on one of those lads of yellow lined paper you see in office stationary cupboards."

"we discussed all the emotions that came with making a huge change in your life without knowing what might happen afterwards. for me, it was this massive build-up of butterflies in my stomach: i was nervous, excited - everything."

- zayn about the song 'rear view'

"when i'd finally finished recording mind of mine, i realized i had put down forty-eight songs. i couldn't believe we had so many. it was a nightmare choosing the final list [...] in the end, it all came together; the songs chosen for the album spoke for themselves..."

"there was definitely a part of me that wanted to show the world i could actually sing. i had been part of a hugely successful pop group, but there was a bit of me that really wanted to prove, to myself more than anyone, that i was a credible artist in my own right..."

"as a solo artist in charge of my own music and image, i can do whatever the fuck i want."