Top 285 Quotes & Sayings by Jay-Z - Page 4

We were kids without fathers, so we found our fathers on wax and on the streets and in history, and in a way, that was a gift. We got to pick and choose the ancestors who would inspire the world we were going to make for ourselves.

It's always been most important for me to figure out "my space" rather than trying to check out what everyone else is up to, minute by minute. Technology is making it easier to connect to other people, but maybe harder to keep connected to yourself-- and that's essential for any artist, I think.

This is why we shouldn't be afraid. There are two possibilities: One is that there's more to life than the physical life, that our souls "will find an even higher place to dwell" when this life is over. If that's true, there's no reason to fear failure or death. The other possibility is that this life is all there is. And if that's true, then we have to really live it - we have to take it for everything it has and "die enormous" instead of "living dormant," as I said way back on "Can I Live." Either way, fear is a waste of time.

Far from a Harvard student, just had the balls to do it

How could I be out there and not do anything?

Used to rock a throwback ballin on the corner, now I rock tailored suit lookin' like a owner.

I am not a businessman. I am a business, man.

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

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.

I ain't lookin' at you dudes -I'm lookin' past you.

If the beat is time, flow is what we do with that time, how we live through it. The beat is everywhere, but every life has to find its own flow.

I like a girl who spend a little cash for her shoes.

In the end, you can't censor the truth, especially when it comes packaged in hot music.

I love you so, But why I love you, I'll never know.

Stop screamin', you know the demon said it's best to die, And even if Jehovah witness, bet he'll never testify, D'Evils.

Is to have had and lost/Better than not having at all?

I don't even like the word politics. It implies something underhanded and I think we need less government.

As fate would have it, Jay's status appears To be at an all-time high, perfect time to say goodbye When I come back like Jordan, wearing the 4-5.

And through our travels we get separated, never forget: In order to survive, got to learn to live with regrets.

My life after childhood has two main stories: the story of the hustler and the story of the rapper, and the two overlap as much as they diverge. I was on the streets for more than half of my life from the time I was thirteen years old. People sometimes say that now I'm so far away from that life - now that I've got businesses and Grammys and magazine covers - that I have no right to rap about it. But how distant is the story of your own life ever going to be? The feelings I had during that part of my life were burned into me like a brand. It was life during wartime.

You put the right artist on the right track in the studio and leave the door open to let God in.

Gotta keep it peace like a buddhist Nobody gonna Wesley snipe me It's less than likely, Move back, Let I breathe Jedi knight, The more space I get the better I write, (Oh) Never I write, but, if, ever I write, I need the space to say whatever I like.

My tears is tatted, my rag in my pocket / Im just looking for love, I know somebody got it

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.

Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be And so I put this on my life Nobody or nothing will ever come between us And I promise I'll give my life

I use a lot of double meanings. I hide 'em like Easter eggs.

I believe excellence is being able to perform at a high level over and over.

You ain't gotta go to church to find your God.

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.

If I don't show the world growth, how are we going to grow?

Boxing is a glorious sport to watch and boxers are incredible, heroic athletes, but it's also, to be honest, a stupid game to play. Even the winners can end up with crippling brain damage. In a lot of ways, hustling is the same. But you learn something special from playing the most difficult games, the games where winning is close to impossible and losing is catastrophic: You learn how to compete as if your life depended on it. That's the lesson I brought with me to the so-called "legitimate" world.

[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.

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.

I came, I saw, I conquered From record sales to sold out concerts.

We'll have a baby who stutters repeatedly We'll name him history

A poet's mission is to make words do more work than they normally do, to make them work on more than one level.

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.

I'm not saying I'm God. But as far as lyrics, I'm God MC.

I think Lil Wayne is extremely talented. I think he's one of the most talented ones out there.

I jack, I rob, I sin. Aw man, I'm Jackie Robinson 'Cept when I run base, I dodge the pen

Hip-hop gave a generation a common ground that didn't require either race to lose anything; everyone gained.

I got 99 Problems but Mitt ain't one.

All these ways we classify things as R&B and hip-hop and rock... It's bullshit. It's all music. If you put yourself in that box, then you won't be able to hear that it's all music at its soul.

Treat my first like my last and the last like my first and my thirst is the same as- when I came.

just when i thought i had everything, i lost it all

Now success was like lust, she's good to the touch, She's good for the moment, but she's never enough

You could name practically any problem in the hood and there'd be a rap song for you.

You shared one of the most intimate things that ever happened to you - falling in love with someone who wasn't brave enough to love you back. Your relieving yourself of your 'secret' is as much about wanting to honestly connect as it is about exhibition. We are all made better by your decision to share publicly.

I smoked some weed, and that's how I finished 'Izzo.'

I'm trying to tell the story in the most clear, concise, and truthful way, taking those everyday words and phrases and capturing them in a way that they become something else.

Which is the other reason hip-hop is controversial: People don't bother trying to get it. The problem isn't in the rap or the rapper or the culture. The problem is that so many people don't even know how to listen to the music.

You know the type: loud as a motorbike but wouldn't bust a grape in a fruit fight.

I couldn't even think about wanting to be something else; I wouldn't let myself visualize another life. But I wrote because I couldn't stop. It was a release, a mental exercise, a way of keeping sane.

Rap has been a path between cultures in the best tradition of popular music.

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.

Screamin' 'Carpe Diem!' until I'm a Dead Poet.

I wrote this [Most Kings] before MJ died, and his death only proves my point: When he was alive, the King of Pop, people were tireless in taking him down, accepting as truth every accusation people made against him, assuming the worst until they drove him away. When he died, suddenly he was beloved again - people realized that the charges against him might really have been bogus, and that the skin lightening was really caused by a disease, and that his weirdness was part of his artistry. But when he was alive and on top, they couldn't wait to bring him down.

Got some, dirt on my shoulder, could you brush it off for me?

[T]he truth is that drug addicts have a disease. It only takes a short time in the streets to realize that out-of-control addiction is a medical problem, not a form of recreational or criminal behavior. And the more society treats drug addiction as a crime, the more money drug dealers will make "relieving" the suffering of the addicts.

I get my by any means on, whenever there's a drought get your umbrellas out because that's when I brainstorm.