Jay-Z Quotes

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

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

A wise man told me don't argue with fools. Cause people from a distance can't tell who is who.

[Banning marriage equality is] discrimination, plain and simple. It's really not about votes. It's about people. I think it's the right thing to do as a human being.

How could I be out there and not do anything?

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.

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

The burden of poverty isn't just that you don't always have the things you need, it's the feeling of being embarrassed every day of your life, and you'd do anything to lift that burden.

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.

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

But this is one of the things that makes rap at its best so human. It doesn't force you to pretend to be only one thing or another, to be a saint or a sinner. It recognizes that you can be true to yourself and still have unexpected dimensions and opposing ideas. Having a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other is the most common thing in the world. The real bullshit is when you act like you don't have contradictions inside you, that you're so dull and unimaginative that your mind never changes or wanders into strange, unexpected places.

Hip-hop is more about attaining wealth. People respect success. They respect big. They don't even have to like your music. If you're big enough, people are drawn to you.

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?

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.

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 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.

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

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

I got mouths to feed til they put flowers on me.

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.

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

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

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

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.

I collect art, and I drink wine... things that I like that I had never been exposed to. But I never said, 'I'm going to buy art to impress this crowd.' That's just ridiculous to me. I don't live my life like that, because how could you be happy with yourself?

You can pay for school, but you can't buy class

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.

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

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

I seen the worst of the worst. I deserve every blessing I receive I'm from the dirt.

Hip-hop is a perfect mix between poetry and boxing.

I have inherited two of the most important brands in hip-hop, Def Jam and Roc-A-Fella. Reid and Universal Music Group have given me the opportunity to manage the companies I have contributed to my whole career. I feel this is a giant step for me and the entire artist community.

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

Life is a gift, love opens it up.

Only he without sin can tell me if my means justify my ends.

I really just like breaking down the barriers, whether it means doing an album with Linkin Park, an album with R. Kelly, or playing at the Brandenburg Gate with Bono.

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.

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

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

It was a weird mix of emotions. One day, your best friend could be killed. The day before, you could be celebrating him getting a brand-new bike.

Whoever said that artists shouldn't pay attention to their business was probably someone w/their hand in some artist's pocket.

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.

You can want success all you want, but to get it, you can’t falter. You can’t slip. You can’t sleep. One eye open, for real, and forever.

I believe you can speak things into existence.

If I was to stop making music tomorrow doesn't mean suddenly there is this gap. You don't get elected. The people decide where you are. Whether I'm here or not, if they want you to be at the top then the people will move me out the way.

Never prayed to God, I prayed to Gotti, that's right it's wicked, that's life I live it. Ain't askin' for forgiveness for my sins. I gotta get my soul right, I gotta get these Devils out my life. Lord forgive him, He got them dark forces in. connected to the high power. 666. I can introduce you to evil.

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

I can think of no one more relevant and credible in the hip-hop community to build upon Def Jam's fantastic legacy and move the company into its next groundbreaking era.