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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Forcing people to be generous isn't humanitarian, effective, compassionate or moral. Only acts that are truly voluntary for all concerned can be truly compassionate.
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The way is the beginning of all beings and the measure of right and wrong.
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We live in an age where people are kind of a bit obsessed with celebrity and stuff. You can't help but be curious about it.
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When I think about singing, and music, I think about how the people who live on the East Tennessee side have more of a curve or yodel to their voices, and then you think about the curve of mountains.
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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.
