American Quotes

I never felt like I had a mother.

I guess hip-hop has been closer to the pulse of the streets than any music we've had in a long time. It's sociology as well as music, which is in keeping with the tradition of black music in America.

I got in the school band and the school choir. It all hit me like a ton of bricks, everything just came out. I played percussion for a while, and stayed after school forever just tinkering around with different things, the clarinets and the violins.

I don't remember feeling love.

Everybody has their idiosyncrasies.

Every country can be defined through their food, their music and their language. That's the soul of a country.

China's got a billion people and a hit record over there is a million records. You know that ain't right.

Arts is just as important as military defense, you know? Emotional defense is just as important.

All guys get into music because they love music and they also want to get the girls.

After every war, there was a significant change in the music, and I can understand how that happened. If you participate in protecting the country, you think you can be part of it, but you come back home and it's worse than ever.

A great song can make a terrible singer sound good, but a good singer - you put a great song on top of that, you're really in great shape!

I started imagining this whole different world. It was a society of musicians, a family I hoped I could belong to one day.

I got a scholarship to Seattle University and I was writing arrangements for singers and everybody. But the music course was too dry and I really wanted to get away from home.

I found this out over the years, that racism is a thinly veiled disguise over economics and money. It really is.

If architecture is frozen music then music must be liquid architecture.

Every day, my daddy told me the same thing. 'Once a task is just begun, never leave it till it's done. Be the labour great or small, do it well or not at all.'

We were in the heart of the ghetto in Chicago during the Depression, and every block - it was probably the biggest black ghetto in America - every block also is the spawning ground practically for every gangster, black and white, in America too.

Imagine what a harmonious world it could be if every single person, both young and old shared a little of what he is good at doing.

I told the truth, and I did it on national TV in a lie-detector test.

I think I have made an impact in the workplace and I do believe that will prevail over any of the other things in the end.

I felt like all of the American people did not believe me because of the things that were said about me, and said that people would say that it was just for the money, and it wasn't about the money. It was about what he did to me. And I knew I was telling the truth.

You give the guy an Image Award three years in a row and then turn on him like that? If that's the role they want to fulfill, they need to send a clearer message.

That was one of the things that interested me about the character. He doesn't want to be a hero, and has no real desire to save the earth or discover aliens. He's sniffing around looking to see what will fall in his lap.

Someone I met years ago explained to me the difference between a personality and an actor, a personality being Eddie Murphy or Roseanne Barr, and an actor being Morgan Freeman and Alfre Woodard or Marlon Brando.

Most of my friends between 21 and 31 are at different stages of figuring out what the hell they are going to do with their lives. It's a big part of our generation. What is the next step?

I want to see as many black professionals as possible.

I walked in thinking, 'I have ten movies under my belt and now they want me to go back to making commercials?' I said, if I do that, I want it to be funny.

Belly was not a bad movie. It was visually very interesting.

All is fair in love and songwriting.

A record is just a snapshot of where you are at any time.