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 love Johnny Cash but I don't love country music that much.
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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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Don't worry so much about your self-esteem. Worry more about your character. Integrity is its own reward.
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There's so much music in Austin, and it's all so different.
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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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Any character that can't be kept straight, to me, isn't a character who should be in the book – you know, anyone not vivid enough to have a claim on my attention.
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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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Music really gets me going, so I've always got to make sure I have my iPod to give me energy to work out.
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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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Your peers will respect you for your integrity and character, not your possessions.
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American poetry is this country's greatest patrimony. It takes a stranger to see some things clearly. This is one of them, and I am that stranger.
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I had true rivalries. Not only did I want to beat my opponent, but I didn't want to let him up, either. I had a rivalry with Mac, Lendl, Borg. Everybody knew there was tension between us, on court and off. That's what's really ingrained in my mind: 'This is real. This isn't a soft rivalry.' There were no hugs and kisses.
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A script like 'The Sixth Sense' is fun to read: It's so well-written, and you get a vivid sense of what's going to be onscreen.
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It's about time we stopped asking what the computer can do for us and instead ask ourselves what we can do for the computer.
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It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives its most distinctive character.
