Jay-Z Quotes
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I'm hungry for knowledge. The whole thing is to learn every day, to get brighter and brighter. That's what this world is about. You look at someone like Gandhi, and he glowed. Martin Luther King glowed. Muhammad Ali glows. I think that's from being bright all the time, and trying to be brighter.
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I smoked some weed, and that's how I finished 'Izzo.'
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New York has a thousand universes in it that don't always connect but we do all walk the same streets, hear the same sirens, ride the same subways, see the same headlines in the Post, read the same writings on the walls. That shared landscape gets inside of all of us and, in some small way, unites us, makes us think we know each other even when we don't.
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The genius thing that we did was, we didn't give up.
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Shakespeare was a man who wrote poetry. I'm a man who writes poetry. Why not compare yourself to the best?
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It was a very intense and stressful situation. There was playing in the Johnny-pump (an opened fire hydrant) and the ice-cream man coming around and all of these games that we'd play, and suddenly it would turn just violent and there would be shootings at 12 in the afternoon on any given day.
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Everything evens up, you just wait, Even a garbage can gets a steak, You ain't even a garbage can, you have faith!
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I was forced to be an artist and a CEO from the beginning, so I was forced to be like a businessman because when I was trying to get a record deal, it was so hard to get a record deal on my own that it was either give up or create my own company.
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No matter where you go you are what you are player and you can try to change but that's just the top layer man you was who you was before you got here
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I grew up in Marcy Projects in Brooklyn, and my mom and pop had an extensive record collection, so Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder and all of those sounds and souls of Motown filled the house.
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May the best of your today's be the worst of your tomorrow's
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If skills sold truth be told I'd probably be lyrically Talib Kweli Truthfully I want to rhyme like Common Sense (But I did five Mil) I ain't been rhyming like Common since.
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The Nets' a stone throw from where I used to throw bricks ...So it's only right I'm still tossing 'round Knicks.
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For me, the challenge is just making great albums, because talent - and writing in general - is not tangible. There's no expiration date on it. At the same time, you might wake up tomorrow and be unable to write music.
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Kurt Cobain OD'd on heroin before committing suicide, but he also OD'd on fame. Cobain was like Basquiat: They both wanted to be famous, and were brilliant enough to make it happen. But then what? Drug addicts kill themselves trying to get that feeling they got from their first high, looking for an experience they'll never get again. In his suicide note, Cobain asked himself, "Why don't you just enjoy it?" and then answered, "I don't know!" It's amazing how much of a mindfuck success can be.
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One of the reasons inequality gets so deep in this country is that everyone wants to be rich. That's the American ideal. Poor people don't like talking about poverty because even though they might live in the projects surrounded by other poor people and have, like, ten dollars in the bank, they don't like to think of themselves as poor.
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Remind yourself. Nobody built like you, you design yourself.
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I have inherited two of the most important brands in hip-hop, Def Jam and Roc-A-Fella. Reid and Universal Music Group have given me the opportunity to manage the companies I have contributed to my whole career. I feel this is a giant step for me and the entire artist community.
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The fans get to see you, and you can do great by your record if you have a great performance or a great night there. That's all part of the business. But at their core, awards shows are not really a sincere thing. For a lot of years, the artists had to pay to play their own set.
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My brands are an extension of me. They're close to me. It's not like running GM, where there's no emotional attachment.
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Far from a Harvard student, just had the balls to do it
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The most amazing feeling I feel Words can't describe what I'm feeling for real Maybe I paint the sky blue My greatest creation was you.
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Whoever said that artists shouldn't pay attention to their business was probably someone w/their hand in some artist's pocket.
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Wherever I go, I bring the culture with me, so that they can understand that it's attainable. I didn't do it any other way than through hip-hop.