- All Quotes
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By the time I got to record my first album, I was 26, I didn't need pen or paper - my memory had been trained just to listen to a song, think of the words, and lay them to tape.
Jay-Z -
People really feel like music is free, but will pay $6 for water. You can drink water free out of the tap and it's good water. But they're okay paying for it. It's just the mindset right now.
Jay-Z
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They say a midget standing on a giant's shoulders can see much further than the giant. So I got the whole rap world on my shoulders, they trying to see further than I am.
Jay-Z -
Treat my first like my last and the last like my first and my thirst is the same as- when I came.
Jay-Z -
I get my by any means on, whenever there's a drought get your umbrellas out because that's when I brainstorm.
Jay-Z -
Little brothers ring fingers get cut up to show mothers they really got em.
Jay-Z -
Rap has been a path between cultures in the best tradition of popular music.
Jay-Z -
I thought I would be more inspired to have all these new feelings to talk about, but I really just want to hang out with my daughter.
Jay-Z
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I'm far from being god, but I work god damn hard.
Jay-Z -
When you're growing up, your dad is your superhero. Once you've let yourself fall that in love with someone, once you put him on such a high pedestal and he lets you down, you never want to experience that pain again.
Jay-Z -
Only God can judge me so I'm gone, either love me or leave me alone.
Jay-Z -
I believe excellence is being able to perform at a high level over and over.
Jay-Z -
What people do in their own homes is their business, and you can choose to love whoever you love. That's their business. It's no different than discriminating against blacks. It's discrimination, plain and simple.
Jay-Z -
When I come back like Jordan, wearing the 4-5. It ain't to play games with you, it's to aim at you, probably maim you. If I owe you I'm blowin' you to smithereens.
Jay-Z
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Now success was like lust, she's good to the touch, She's good for the moment, but she's never enough
Jay-Z -
It's hilarious a lot of times. You have a conversation with someone, and he's like, 'You speak so well!' I'm like, 'What do you mean? Do you understand that's an insult?
Jay-Z -
Electing a black man named Barack Obama President in the same country that elected George W. Bush - twice! - is as far-fetched as a hustler from Marcy performing at that President's inauguration. But it happened.
Jay-Z -
For me, being with Obama or having dinner with Bill Clinton... It's crazy. It's mind-blowing, because where I come from is just another world. We were just ignored by politicians, by America in general.
Jay-Z -
That's why this generation is the least racist generation ever. You see it all the time. Go to any club. People are intermingling, hanging out, having fun, enjoying the same music. Hip-hop is not just in the Bronx anymore. It's worldwide. Everywhere you go, people are listening to hip-hop and partying together. Hip-hop has done that.
Jay-Z -
A poet's mission is to make words do more work than they normally do, to make them work on more than one level.
Jay-Z
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Hip-hop is a perfect mix between poetry and boxing.
Jay-Z -
Their gunnin' for me, want to see me fall, you know my story, been through it all, times I felt like dyin', but I ain't cryin', what didn't kill me, makes me strong as iron.
Jay-Z -
Well I'm not just gon' go and do rap songs. I wanna touch, and maybe help, and see what I can do in these areas.' As I start looking around me, looking at things in ways that I can become helpful, starting at the first thing, water. Something as simple as water.
Jay-Z -
Don't make decisions based on the fear.
Jay-Z