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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Tori Amos had a major influence on how I craft words in a song.
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All autobiography is storytelling; all writing is autobiography.
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I think a British icon is someone who conducts themself with real dignity: someone who is truly talented and modest. These are things that I would aspire to in my career.
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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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I have yet to see a piece of writing, political or non-political, that doesn't have a slant. All writing slants the way a writer leans, and no man is born perpendicular, although many men are born upright.
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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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A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.
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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've been working almost 20 years, and I think I've worked with maybe one black director of photography in that time. Maybe two women directors or DPs. Maybe. And I've done a lot of TV. That's a lot of people I've worked with.
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I'm happy living in the countryside. We are 30 minutes away from Milan, so I can drive in for dinner and drive out. It's not a question of living in the country or in the city, it's really a question of living in a tight, close-knit clan that makes the difference.
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Dignity is not negotiable. Dignity is the honor of the family.
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A pastor has to be media-savvy if he's going to reach everybody. I don't mean to be ugly and harsh, but to be forthright and candid. And the result is that people that don't like you start listening.
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The downside of being a writer is you get plenty of time to overthink your life.
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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.
