Jay-Z (Shawn Corey Carter) Quotes
Artists can have greater access to reality; they can see patterns and details and connections that other people, distracted by the blur of life, might miss. Just sharing that truth can be a very powerful thing.
Quotes to Explore
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I did not direct my life. I didn't design it. I never made decisions. Things always came up and made them for me. That's what life is.
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The natural world is often bleak, but the language devoted to it is as careful as needlepoint and prophetic as well.
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After the success of my first album and the success of 'Flow Joe' kind of faded, I was struggling to make some money and make ends meet.
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There is total unanimity that the most serious threat facing the United States and Israel is a nuclear-armed Iran.
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There's nowhere like Detroit; it's a modern necropolis: all these art deco masterpieces crumbling away.
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The ball whizzes past like a bumblebee and the Indians are in the sea.
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You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it.
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I think there is one higher office than president and I would call that patriot.
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If you want to wear long hair or wear that dress, as long as you're not hurting yourself or anybody else, I say do it. If you want to go out and have a romantic, sexy affair, do it.
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No such thing as a man willing to be honest - that would be like a blind man willing to see.
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A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will keep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those worth committing.
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When you do take the home pregnancy test, it doesn't quite seem real. But when you see the baby and the heartbeat on the ultrasound, it's so incredible.
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What we see today is an American economy that has boomed because of policies and developments of the 1950s and '60s: the interstate-highway system, massive funding for science and technology, a public-education system that was the envy of the world and generous immigration policies.
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My experience has offered me the sensibility that encourages me to try newer characters.
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When we went into World War II, I was a tractor driver then. I drove tractors on the plantation. So when they start calling people my age, 18, up, I was one they called.
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An English journalist called Michael Viney told me when I was 25, that I would write well if I cared a lot what I was writing about. That worked. I went home that day and wrote about parents not understanding their children as well as we teachers did, and it was published the very next week.
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I have my outlet for my humor through my characters, and I also have the intimacy of rapport with my fans that allows me to explain my philosophy and spirituality.
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I used to have a real passion for writing, but not so much anymore - probably because I do too much of it.
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A tool is but the extension of a man's hand, and a machine is but a complex tool. And he that invents a machine augments the power of a man and the well-being of mankind.
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I have routines but not superstitions.
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Tossed into the Secaucus graveyard are about 25 centuries of classical culture and the standards of style, elegance and grandeur that it gave to the dreams and constructions of Western man. That turns the Jersey wasteland into a pretty classy dump.
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I loved 'Funny Lady' for whatever reason. People say they didn't know I could sing and dance. Well, nobody ever asks me - it's always, 'Punch this guy.'
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Artists can have greater access to reality; they can see patterns and details and connections that other people, distracted by the blur of life, might miss. Just sharing that truth can be a very powerful thing.
