Yasiin Bey (Mos Def) Quotes

Mos Def is a name that I built and cultivated over the years, it's a name that the streets taught me, a figure of speech that was given to me by the culture and by my environment, and I feel I've done quite a bit with that name. [But] it's time to expand and move on.

Yasiin Bey Black Star

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Quotes to Explore

• I'm an optimist about other people. I'm not an optimist about myself.

  

  Keinan Abdi Warsame
  • People
  • Myself
  • Optimist

• I didn't expect to have music as my main thing. I always thought I was going to be a lawyer. When I graduated, I was doing really well with my music in Malaysia. I had stable income, and I had really good momentum in the music industry, so I had to make a decision whether to stop that and continue being a lawyer.

  

  Yuna
  • Good
  • Music
  • Stop

• I know I should be Wonder Woman. They need an international actress - a fresh face. They need a woman who's tall, athletic and dark-haired - and an actress who can play the part. That's me. So, I'm coming to L.A. to work hard and meet the industry. And if 'Wonder Woman' comes together, I want it.

  

  Tanit Phoenix
  • Work
  • Together
  • Dark

• I love working with people and having them bring something to the table that I couldn't. I think one of my favourite artists to work with has been Kucka. She's Australian, too, and it's great working with her because we kind of have a very similar take on music, and we like a lot of the same stuff. We're not super-precious about ideas.

  

  Flume
  • People
  • Work
  • Great

• It's not like I ever sat in my room and said I was going to start a media company and become an editor in chief. It was never my dream. It was something that just happened.

  

  Imran Amed
  • Dream
  • Start
  • Media

• I never saw myself as being ambitious, I saw myself as being in love with the profession. I'm a people person. I love to get to know different kinds of people.

  

  Jack Kelley
  • Person
  • Profession
  • Ambitious

• The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.

  

  W. E. B. Du Bois
  • Liberty
  • Price
  • Cost

• In business, you're the Chief Salesman. Create a sense of demand, rather than waiting to have demand.

  

  Barbara Corcoran
  • Business
  • You
  • Waiting

• I love stories about two people who are doing illegal things, who we really enjoy watching despite the fact that we know they are doomed in some way.

  

  Famke Janssen
  • People
  • Love
  • Doing

• As a child, my mother told me lots of fairy stories, many her own invention. She, too, tended to reverse the norm.

  

  Tanith Lee
  • Mother
  • Child
  • Stories

• Mothers are the people who love us for no good reason. And those of us who are mothers know it's the most exquisite love of all.

  

  Maggie Gallagher
  • Love
  • Mother
  • Know

• The go-to reflex all over Hollywood is still likeability. I've always had a problem with it because I think I have a weird barometer in the sense that some of the characters I've cared about the most in movies are characters that are often thought of as despicable.

  

  Damien Chazelle
  • Think
  • Problem
  • Thought

• When I got out of college, I moved to Seattle because it was the nearest big city and still didn't know if I wanted to be a composer, conductor, singer, actor. I just got day jobs and auditioned and took what came, and the theater doors were the ones opening the most.

  

  J. K. Simmons
  • City
  • College
  • Day

• Ferran Adria making hamburgers... some thought it was crazy. But getting them perfect was a challenge. Plus I'm fascinated by all aspects of food.

  

  Ferran Adria
  • Food
  • Perfect
  • Crazy

• When I joined WKRC, they were very concerned over my ability to ad lib or speak extemporaneously, which was an unknown factor up until that point.

  

  Waite Hoyt
  • Up
  • Speak
  • Ability

• I think when the bottom started to drop out, we didn't recognize it.

  

  Wellington Mara
  • Think
  • Bottom
  • Drop

• The organizers and perpetuators of segregation are as much the enemy of America as any foreign invader.

  

  Bayard Rustin
  • America
  • Enemy
  • Segregation

• It was OK for the media to pursue Former President Clinton year after year for lying about a private, consensual sexual affair, but we have five justices who committed one of the biggest crimes in American History, and it ceased to be a big story.

  

  Vincent Bugliosi
  • American
  • History
  • Year

• Honestly, I never thought I'd actually be playing a teen lesbian. I didn't think it was going to go this far. But I'm glad that it did, because there have been a lot of fans who have expressed that they've been going through similar situations in their lives.

  

  Naya Rivera
  • Think
  • Thought
  • Teen

• Who is the ideal reader? God only knows.

  

  John Barton
  • God

• When you start making a movie, people want to know: Who's the star power? And very early, I realized there's not a lot of 26-year-old black actors who have been given the opportunity to be the lead of a film. It's, like, Michael B. Jordan, and then we're done.

  

  Jordan Peele
  • People
  • Done
  • Power

• Whoever tells the best story shapes the culture.

  

  Erwin McManus
  • Culture
  • Story
  • Shapes

• In the end, the sign of Aretha Franklin's artistry is that she always leaves her mark - first, on the music, then on us.

  

  Jon Landau
  • Music
  • Mark
  • Leaves

• Mos Def is a name that I built and cultivated over the years, it's a name that the streets taught me, a figure of speech that was given to me by the culture and by my environment, and I feel I've done quite a bit with that name. [But] it's time to expand and move on.

  

  Yasiin Bey Black Star
  • Done
  • Culture
  • Moving