Jay-Z Quotes
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I came, I saw, I conquered From record sales to sold out concerts.
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You can put a new shirt on your back, slide a fresh chain around your neck, and accumulate all the money and power in the world, but at the end of the day those are just layers. Money and power don't change you, they just further expose your true self.
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How could I be out there and not do anything?
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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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And now we're lethal, infected with D'Evils
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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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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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You not feeling me, fine. It costs you nothing, pay me no mind.
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Don't make decisions based on the fear.
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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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And through our travels we get separated, never forget: In order to survive, got to learn to live with regrets.
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[T]he truth is you don't need some external demon to take control of you to turn you into a raging, money-obsessed sociopath, you only need to let loose the demons you already have inside of you.
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When people say stuff like, "Oh, that's soft rock. I don't listen to that," I find that elitist. It's music-racist.
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Jay Hov about to change my name to Jay Pesobut in a meantime called me William H thoughon a platinum Yamaha got the engine gunningthrowing it up like liquor on an empty stomach.
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Can I hit it in the morning with out giving you have of my dough?
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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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I don't even like the word politics. It implies something underhanded and I think we need less government.
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Everyone who makes music is a good collaborator at their foundation because in order to make music, you have to connect to it in a way that other people can't.
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Be fluid. Treat each project differently. Be water, man. The best style is no style. Because styles can be figured out. And when you have no style they can't figure you out.
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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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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.
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Far from a Harvard student, just had the balls to do it
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Your future is ahead of you. Imagine the notion of the past fifteen years of your life being a blip in your story.
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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.