Yasiin Bey (Mos Def) Quotes
History has proven that it's impossible to crush the artist. There's always gonna be a need for somebody to write a poem or sing a song about something, about life - that makes it real. There's the word that goes beyond the word.
Quotes to Explore
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All autobiography is storytelling; all writing is autobiography.
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The 'Islam vs. the West' dialogue ceased to be about real people a long time ago.
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Many past products advertised in old publications can be profitably promoted all over again. Sometimes, just by giving them a new twist or modern application, you'll hit a real winner.
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From the stage, I can reach a large audience, and you learn from being on stage how much a song reaches, what extent of the crowd a song can reach. I write in a way that can reach most of the audience, but I also wanted to have truly intimate moments as well, many intimate moments, more so than the big moments.
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I actually run a non-profit where one of the main objectives is to branch out and get a new audience for the theater. Just because the writing is so good and nothing is more effective than seeing something live and happening right in front of your face, so I definitely want to continue to pursue that.
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I've been writing for a long time. I sat down to write my first novel in the middle of March of 1982.
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Being my dad's daughter has allowed me to do a lot of things that maybe another artist might not be able to do or wouldn't be necessarily embraced doing.
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I guess I had a suspicion of it my entire life without knowing exactly what it was – knowing that there was something different about me, which I attributed to being an artist. At 11 or 12 I started sort of clarifying for myself. It took a while.
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Only a bad artist thinks he has a good idea. A good artist does not need anything.
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For an entrepreneur with 'improbable' and 'impossible' dreams, the alleged stability that comes from getting 'a real job' is nothing but a sign of slavery.
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I certainly wasn't a fan of Thatcher's politics. People liked to label us as children of Thatcher. What nonsense. The real children of Thatcher came in the 1990s, and had no interest in politics. The Oasis, Britpop scene.
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I love the whole process for each new album. The writing, the touring, everything. For me, it never gets old.
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I changed my writing style deliberately. My first two novels were written in a very self-consciously literary way. After I embraced gay subject matter, which was then new, I didn't want to stand in its way. I wanted to make the style as transparent as possible so I could get on with it and tell the story, which was inherently interesting.
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But when I was a little kid, I was always writing stories and illustrating little books that I would create.
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I like to think that I'm one of the few people in public life who write their own material. I write every word. And I really enjoy writing - especially my political commentary.
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Trust your gut instinct over spreadsheets. There are too many variables in the real world that you simply can't put into a spreadsheet. Spreadsheets spit out results from your inexact assumptions and give you a false sense of security. In most cases, your heart and gut are still your best guide.
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Whatever your walk of life is, I think you have to be real about it.
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The idea that an actress - mostly lauded for her performances in more than a dozen films - somehow represents a threat to Iran's national security is laughable at best. But in Ahangarani's case, far from anything humorous, the allegations have actually resulted in the sober prospect of real prison time.
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Those books of mine that are remunerative - I'm not talking about poetry here - take years to write, and I am never sure they'll be successful. So writing is a risk in more senses than one.
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I have no talent. I have nothing to offer.
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O tender yearning, sweet hoping!The golden time of first love!The eye sees the open heaven,The heart is intoxicated with bliss;O that the beautiful time of young loveCould remain green forever.
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I'm Native American, so the racial thing kind of hits home with me.
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The problem with living in a fast-food nation is that we expect food to be cheap.
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History has proven that it's impossible to crush the artist. There's always gonna be a need for somebody to write a poem or sing a song about something, about life - that makes it real. There's the word that goes beyond the word.
