James Weldon Johnson Quotes
It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives its most distinctive character.
Quotes to Explore
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Music was a way of rebelling against the whole rah-rah high school thing.
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Among my books, the ones that sell best are for readers between the ages of 8 and 12. According to a study by the Association of American Publishers, the largest area of industry growth in 2014 was in the children and young adult category.
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I started acting almost on a whim to help my music career.
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I was convinced in middle school that I invented tight-rolling your pants, because I would get hand-me-downs from my brothers, and of course they were bell-bottoms from the '70s. So I would fold and fold over the bells. I like to think I started the trend. But I didn't.
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The most meaningful engine of change, powerful enough to confront corporate power, may be not so much environmental quality, as the economic development and growth associated with the effort to improve it.
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I guess when I first started speaking with an American accent, there's a tendency to create a caricature of the accent because you just exaggerate the pieces that stand out to you.
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My dad was a huge big band and jazz fan, and we both sort of enjoyed be-bop, but man, it required so much skill to play it. And then there was cool jazz, the era that Miles, Coltrane, and Ornette ushered in, and that found a home in me. It turns out that that music was just really where I breathed.
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Most experiences are either sensual or intellectual. Chamber music, played by a small group so the listener can follow what each player is doing, is both.
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Bankruptocracy is as much a European predicament as it is an American 'invention.' The difference between the experience of the two continents is that at least Americans did not have to labour under the enormous design faults of the eurozone.
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My music is a little dark, and my lyrics are a little darker. Every day, I'm fighting towards the light.
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But I really believe that you don't do music because you want to, you do it because you have to.
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I have considered rap music stars, and there is one in my new book, Lovers and Players, and there is also a hip-hop music mogul who I think you will like a lot.
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Parenthood, like death, is an event for which it is nearly impossible to be prepared. It brings you into a new relationship with the fact of your own existence, a relationship in which one may be rendered helpless.
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I wanted a name I could shape the music towards. I was going to Miami quite a lot at the time, speaking a lot of Spanish with my friends from Cuba - 'Lana Del Rey' reminded us of the glamour of the seaside. It sounded gorgeous coming off the tip of the tongue.
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There are two factors in American politics that may seem strange to Europeans: race and religion.
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There was such a relationship between the buffalo and the American Indian - the Indians would eat them, live inside their pelts, use every part of the body. There was almost no separation between the people and the animals.
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We should make it so that young people pay their fair share for health care, and nothing more. And instead of Washington telling us what to buy, let's get back to letting every American choose the plan that's best for them and their family.
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My character and my behavior is not for politics. I say what I think. I'm too liberal.
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I had all the normal interests - I played basketball and I headed the school paper. But I also developed very early a great love for music and literature and the theater.
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My pictures are airbrushed.
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Most music that you hear is in synch with itself. We were experimenting with the music falling out of synch with itself and even though it is out of synch you mind can still understand what it is meant to be doing.
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I am guilty of using dollar signs as proof of a work of art's longevity.
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It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives its most distinctive character.
