Jay-Z quote: "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."

Rap for me is like making movies, telling stories, and getting the emotions of the songs through in ...
JAY-Z

My mom had early rap records, like Jimmy Spicer. In the middle of the records was a turntable and a ...
JAY-Z

I'm a mirror. If you're cool with me, I'm cool with you, and the exchange starts. What y...
JAY-Z

Successful people have a bigger fear of failure than people who've never done anything because i...
JAY-Z

I collect art, and I drink wine... things that I like that I had never been exposed to. But I never ...
JAY-Z

Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk. Martin Luther King walked so Obama could run. Obama...
JAY-Z

One of the reasons inequality gets so deep in this country is that everyone wants to be rich. That&#...
JAY-Z

I don't sit around with my friends and talk about money, ever. On a record, that's different...
JAY-Z

All my businesses are part of the culture, so I have to stay true to whatever I'm feeling at the...
JAY-Z

It's hilarious a lot of times. You have a conversation with someone, and he's like, 'You...
JAY-Z

I'm far from being god, but I work god damn hard.
JAY-Z

The burden of poverty isn't just that you don't always have the things you need, it's th...
JAY-Z

I treat people based on who they really are, not the name. Everyone has to be respectful and be a hu...
JAY-Z

I love what I do, and when you love what you do, you want to be the best at it.
JAY-Z

Your job is to inspire people from your neighborhood to get out.
JAY-Z

I've never looked at myself and said that I need to be a certain way to be around a certain sort...
JAY-Z

Belief in oneself and knowing who you are, I mean, that's the foundation for everything great.
JAY-Z

Excellence is being able to perform at a high level over and over again. You can hit a half-court sh...
JAY-Z

I grew up in Marcy Projects in Brooklyn, and my mom and pop had an extensive record collection, so M...
JAY-Z

If just the presence of Tidal causes other companies to have better pay structure or to pay more att...
JAY-Z

It was a weird mix of emotions. One day, your best friend could be killed. The day before, you could...
JAY-Z

I'm hungry for knowledge. The whole thing is to learn every day, to get brighter and brighter. T...
JAY-Z

The average rap life is two or three albums. You're lucky to get to your second album in rap!
JAY-Z

When the TV version of Annie came on, I was drawn to it. It was the struggle of this poor kid in thi...
JAY-Z

I think in London - and I don't wanna offend anybody in America, but this is a real statement - ...
JAY-Z

That's why this generation is the least racist generation ever. You see it all the time. Go to a...
JAY-Z

I've got a nice collection of paintings - a Basquiat, a black-and-white Warhol that's like a...
JAY-Z

I was forced to be an artist and a CEO from the beginning, so I was forced to be like a businessman ...
JAY-Z

I've talked to Bill Clinton - he's the ultimate rock star; no one's more charming than h...
JAY-Z

I didn't go to many movies. My mom would make a family outing and bring chicken in the theater. ...
JAY-Z

It wasn't until sixth grade, at P.S. 168, when my teacher took us on a field trip to her house t...
JAY-Z

I try to make music with emotion and integrity. And authenticity. You can feel when something's ...
JAY-Z

Wherever I go, I bring the culture with me, so that they can understand that it's attainable. I ...
JAY-Z

The burden of poverty isn't just that you don't always have the things you need: it's th...
JAY-Z

As kids we didn't complain about being poor; we talked about how rich we were going to be and ma...
JAY-Z

I think it's very important for hip-hop, when an artist reaches a certain level, to ascend to ex...
JAY-Z

Politics - I still think it's a bunch of liars and a bunch of self-interest. It's not about ...
JAY-Z

I'll make a song with Rick Rubin, a song with Beyonce, a song with Lenny Kravitz. I just believe...
JAY-Z

Hip-hop is more about attaining wealth. People respect success. They respect big. They don't eve...
JAY-Z

Providing - that's not love. Being there - that's more important. I mean, we see that. We se...
JAY-Z

I'm just saying the producers and people who work on music are getting left out - that's whe...
JAY-Z

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

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

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

A poet's mission is to make words do more work than they normally do, to make them work on more than...
JAY-Z

Only God can judge me so I'm gone, either love me or leave me alone.
JAY-Z

I got love for Damon Dash as I did before. I don't know if we can be around each other in that w...
JAY-Z

I can think of no one more relevant and credible in the hip-hop community to build upon Def Jam'...
JAY-Z

Around 20. I'd been trying to transition from the streets to the music business, but I would mak...
JAY-Z

Successful people have a bigger fear of failure than people who've never done anything because i...
JAY-Z

What people have to understand is 'Billboard' is a magazine. They're like elected offici...
JAY-Z

Biggie was the King Of New York as a rapper. There's a lot more dangerous guys than Biggie Small...
JAY-Z

I'd rather die enormous than live dormant.
JAY-Z

He who does not feel me is not real to me, therefore he does not exist. So, poof... vamoose, son of ...
JAY-Z

If you look at my career and you look at the span of my work and the things I have done, as far as t...
JAY-Z

The day Obama got into office, rap was less important because Obama gave kids an alternative. But wi...
JAY-Z

I was a really good student. In the sixth grade, I was reading at a twelfth grade reading level. But...
JAY-Z

When Basquiat was hanging out with Madonna and Fab Five Freddy, and all those worlds were colliding,...
JAY-Z

I was an artist, I was executive producer on my first album, so I've always had to manage both. ...
JAY-Z

Hip-hop has done so much for racial relations, and I don't think it's given the proper credi...
JAY-Z

I've said the election of Obama has made the hustler less relevant. People took it in a way that...
JAY-Z

Nothing me and Kanye can do musically was gonna match the event of what we were trying to do. So we ...
JAY-Z

I listen to everything - from Sarah McLachlan and Alanis Morissette all the way down to rap like Sca...
JAY-Z

For me, being with Obama or having dinner with Bill Clinton... it's crazy. It's mind-blowing...
JAY-Z

They say a midget standing on a giant's shoulders can see much further than the giant. So I got ...
JAY-Z

Primarily I see myself as so much more than a rapper. I really believe I am the voice for a lot of p...
JAY-Z

Companies that pretend to care about music and really care about other things - whether it be hardwa...
JAY-Z

No matter where you go, you are what you are playa
JAY-Z

They say a midget standing on a giant's shoulders can see much further than the giant. So I got the ...
JAY-Z

Can I live?
JAY-Z

Hip-hop has done more for race relations than most cultural icons; and I say save Martin Luther King...
JAY-Z

I don't profess to be a political rapper, like groups such as 'Dead Prez' or 'Public...
JAY-Z

I think that's what happened to the record business when 'Napster' came around. The indu...
JAY-Z

If I go into a studio and find my truth of the moment, there are a number of people in the world who...
JAY-Z

I've always believed in good music over bad music. I believe in two sorts of musics. And the lin...
JAY-Z

Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk. Martin Luther King walked so Obama could run. Obama...
JAY-Z

May the best of your today, be the worst of your tomorrow.
JAY Z

May the best of your today, be the worst of your tommorrow.
JAY Z

My first album was mainly dealing with street issues, and it was 'coded': it was called '...
JAY-Z

I am against discrimination of any kind, but if I make snap judgments, no matter who it's toward...
JAY-Z

As an artist, you make music. And if you see people who don't know how to market your music, you...
JAY-Z

I have inherited two of the most important brands in hip-hop, Def Jam and Roc-A-Fella. Reid and Univ...
JAY-Z

Hip-hop from the beginning has always been aspirational. It always broke that notion that an artist ...
JAY-Z

Racism is taught in the home. We agree on that? Well, it's very hard to teach racism to a teenag...
JAY-Z

When you're growing up, your dad is your superhero. Once you've let yourself fall that in lo...
JAY-Z

No, I'm not interested in politics. I have zero interest. I have interest in hope and people.
JAY-Z

I remember the first time I saw the 'Sugarhill Gang' on Soul Train. I was 11 or 12. I was li...
JAY-Z

When I came into the music, I was forced to be a CEO. I was forced to be an entrepreneur; I was forc...
JAY-Z

I don't think any rapper can go back. You can be a car salesman, a bank teller - I mean, really ...
JAY-Z

I think the problem with people, as they start to mature, they say, 'Rap is a young man's ga...
JAY-Z

And all you other cats throwin' shots at Jigga, | You only get half a bar: fuck y'all niggaz.
JAY-Z

I'm a hustler, baby; I sell water to a well!
JAY-Z

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

The art of rap is deceptive. It seems so straightforward and personal and real that people read it c...
JAY-Z

I'm not a businessman, I'm a business, man!
JAY-Z

I don't know where streaming will go in the future. The analytics that we're seeing tell us ...
JAY-Z

I would run into the corner store, the bodega, and just grab a paper bag or buy juice - anything jus...
JAY-Z

It's always been most important for me to figure out "my space" rather than trying to check out what...
JAY-Z

I'm here to tell niggas it ain't all swell.
There's Heaven then there's Hell niggas
One da...
JAY-Z

I learned to ride a ten-speed when I was 4 or 5. My uncle gave me the bike, hand-me-down, and everyo...
JAY-Z

He slid her a skeptical look. “What is that?”
She almost laughed at the suspicion in his fa...
Z. ROCKWARD

No matter how advanced the technology, sometimes things just needed a good knock.
Z. ROCKWARD

When no one need you to comeback home.. Keep strong... Because they are still a home for you.. Your ...
JAY

Write what you love. Love will hold you through the hard times and hold the world during the good ti...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

I think of myself as a plain human being who happens to be an American.
LAURA Z. HOBSON

I grew up in an agnostic broad-minded family.
LAURA Z. HOBSON

The continuous invention of new ways of observing is man's special secret of living.
J. Z. YOUNG

One of the best parts of being a writer means that researching all kinds of cool stuff actually coun...
GAIL Z. MARTIN

Getting to share the stories in my head with other people and have them enjoy those stories, and hav...
GAIL Z. MARTIN

The 370-year-old antique shop Trifles and Folly is the heart of 'Deadly Curiosities,' my new...
GAIL Z. MARTIN

I always send new writers to 'Writer's Digest Books' line-up of how-to books. I read the...
GAIL Z. MARTIN

My father loved antique shops and shows, and quite a bit of my childhood involved outings to dim, du...
GAIL Z. MARTIN

I grew up around old stuff that was not necessarily valuable, but certainly unusual.
GAIL Z. MARTIN

I call myself, 'The Estee Lauder of the garden world.' I'm my own little conglomerate.
C. Z. GUEST

The most important thing is to enjoy yourself and have a good time.
C. Z. GUEST

What I don't understand is these people who go on the street wearing riding clothes, and they ha...
C. Z. GUEST

All the girls today want to be famous, but they haven't earned their spurs.
C. Z. GUEST

I like the classic look. Keep it simple. There's only so much you can wear.
C. Z. GUEST

If God invented marathons to keep people from doing anything more stupid, the triathlon must have ta...
P. Z. PEARCE

Maturity, one discovers, has everything to do with the acceptance of ‘not knowing.
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

The night is the hardest time to be alive and 4am knows all my secrets.
POPPY Z. BRITE

When the great white silence comes and fills the boughs of the trees with a thickening, glistening b...
J. Z. KNIGHT

Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder ...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

It takes a kind of shabby arrogance to survive in our time, and a fairly romantic nature to want to.
EDGAR Z. FRIEDENBERG

If our nation wants to reduce global warming, air pollution and energy instability, we should invest...
MARK Z. JACOBSON

Every dollar spent on nuclear is one less dollar spent on clean renewable energy and one more dollar...
MARK Z. JACOBSON

At the heart of any terror is the fear of losing what we find meaningful.
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

I've always felt that having a garden is like having a good and loyal friend.
C. Z. GUEST

Some nights are made for torture, or reflection, or the savoring of loneliness.
POPPY Z. BRITE

Anger is one way to respond to fear. I say one way because responses are categorically multiple.
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

The greatest of love letters are always coded for the one and not the many.
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

By now you've probably noticed that except when safely contained by quotes, Zampanò always steers c...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

The ruminations are mine,

let

the world

be yours.
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

You'll be sick or feeling troubled or deeply in love or quietly uncertain or even content for the fi...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

No one ever really gets used to nightmares.
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

And where there is no Echo there is no description of space or love. There is only silence.
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

Here then at long last is my darkness. No cry of light, no glimmer, not even the faintest shard of h...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

Some people reflect light, some deflect it, you by some miracle, seem to collect it.
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

...and there you have it, another body on the floor surrounded by things that don't mean much to any...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

Love of love written by the broken hearted, love of life written by the dead.
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

What miracle is this? This giant tree.
It stands ten thousand feet high
But doesn't reach ...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

Prometheus, thief of light, giver of light, bound by the gods, must have been a book.
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

I took my morning walk, I took my evening walk, I ate something, I thought about something, I wrote,...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

Why did god create a dual universe?
So he might say
‘Be not like me. I am alone.'
A...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

I am not a fool. I am wise. I will run from my fear, I will outdistance my fear, then I will hide fr...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

Losing the possibility of something is the exact same thing as losing hope and without hope nothing ...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

Sublime is something you choke on after a shot of tequila.
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

For some reason, you will no longer be the person you believed you once were. You'll detect slow and...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

Scars are the paler pain of survival received unwillingly and displayed in the language of injury.
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

I still get nightmares. In fact, I get them so often I should be used to them by now. I'm not. No on...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

This is not for you.
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

You shall be my roots and
I will be your shade,
though the sun burns my leaves.

MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

We all create stories to protect ourselves.
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

Little solace comes
to those who grieve
when thoughts keep drifting
as walls keep shi...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

It may be the wrong decision, but fuck it, it's mine.
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

This much I'm certain of: it doesn't happen immediately. You'll finish [the book] and that will be t...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder ...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

I'm a big believer in big books, and that doesn't necessarily mean long books.
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

Passion has little to do with euphoria and everything to do with patience. It is not about feeling g...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

New Orleans cuisine is Creole rather than Cajun.
POPPY Z. BRITE

the seriousness of emotional deprivation:

It is not difficult to understand how children ...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

All weakness tends to corrupt, and impotence corrupts absolutely.
EDGAR Z. FREIDENBERG

My childhood may have been more demented than most, because I learned to read very early and was all...
POPPY Z. BRITE

Yeah, I think A Confederacy of Dunces is probably the perfect New Orleans book.
POPPY Z. BRITE

What we must decide is perhaps how we are valuable, rather than how valuable we are.
EDGAR Z. FRIEDENBERG

The age of a woman doesn't mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.
SIGMUND Z. ENGEL

You can power the entire U.S. vehicle fleet with 73,000 to 145,000 five-megawatt wind turbines. That...
MARK Z. JACOBSON

In high school I was the dog, always, and I never have felt comfortable or right in my body, and par...
POPPY Z. BRITE

This is the point being missed by readers who lament Liquor's lack of hot sex scenes, probably b...
POPPY Z. BRITE

In France, for instance, one magazine writer was convinced that On The Road had been a huge influenc...
POPPY Z. BRITE

No one has ever done anything too bad to be forgiven
R. Z. SHEPPARD

At some point you have to start letting people save their own life.
POPPY Z. BRITE

An able practitioner of glitz lit.
R. Z. SHEPPARD

Physics depends on a universe infinitely centred on an equals sign.
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

Then no matter where you are, in a crowded restaurant or on some desolate street or even in the comf...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

Not only do most people accept violence if it is perpetrated by legitimate authority, they also rega...
EDGAR Z. FRIEDENBERG

An old man loved is winter with flowers.
EDGAR Z. FRIEDENBERG

[Ken] Kesey practices what has come to be known as gonzo journalism. The reporter, often intoxicated...
R. Z. SHEPPARD

His reserve of disdain appears endless. He could no sooner shut it off than a vampire could forgo hi...
R. Z. SHEPPARD

The 'teenager' seems to have replaced the Communist as the appropriate target for public controversy...
EDGAR Z. FRIEDENBERG

The short story is like an old friend who calls whenever he is in town. We are happy to hear from it...
R. Z. SHEPPARD

It was like discovering that your innermost fires and terrors, the things you believed no one else c...
POPPY Z. BRITE

In the end Navidson is left with one page and one match. For a long time he waits in darkness and co...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

The San Francisco Bay Area [is] the playpen of countercultures.
R. Z. SHEPPARD

Two kisses in one kiss was all it took, a comfort, a warmth, perhaps temporary, perhaps false, but r...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

Youth always tries to fill the void, an old man learns to live with it.
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

You could power America with renewables from a technical and economic standpoint. The biggest obstac...
MARK Z. JACOBSON

...life's big. If you can't fix it, give it a spin.
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

And I can't think of a reason I'd ever use a pseudonym, as I wouldn't want to publish so...
POPPY Z. BRITE

Because the enormous narcissism of their parents deprived Will and Tom of suitable role models, both...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

Let the night come. We are not afraid.
POPPY Z. BRITE

The last dying days of summer, fall coming on fast. A cold night, the first of the season, a change ...
POPPY Z. BRITE

Her smile, I'm sure, burnt Rome to the ground.
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

You wouldn't believe how much harder it's getting for me to just leave my studio. It's really sad. I...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

Absolutely nothing visible to the eye provides a reason for or even evidence of those terrifying shi...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

Beautiful women are always drawn to men they think will keep them beautiful.
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

Explanation is not half as strong as experience but experience is not half as strong as experience a...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

People frequently comment on the emptiness in one night stands, but emptiness here has always been j...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

Even the brightest magnesium flare can do little against such dark except blind the eyes of the one ...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

Of course there always will be darkness but I realize now something inhabits it. Historical or not. ...
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI

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.

Jay-Z

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