Lenny Kravitz Quotes

It's like a dream to come to Spain and stay for a couple of years and get somebody to teach me Spanish music.

I had no idea 'The Hunger Games' was so big. I didn't even know the book. I had been living under my own rock.

A lot of my songs deal with spirituality and God, and I guess if you're in tune with that, you'll read into it.

Our music is always a reflection of where we are in a society. That's what enables so many people to do what they do. So my advice is to work at your craft. Be the best you can be at your craft and do it sincerely. Even in the world we live in today, that will give you longevity. At the end of the day, I want the quality of my work to stand, not how much I did.

Music definitely inspires my design all the time.

Confusion makes people uncomfortable. They can't put their finger on me.

People feel they have to live that stereotypical lifestyle in order to be a rock star. You don't have to shoot heroin and act a certain way to be a rock and roll musician.

Me being in my grandmother's yard in Brooklyn. I must have been about 3. I had this red balloon. I let go of it, and it went up into the sky and just kept going and going. I completely flipped out, because I didn't understand why.

I honestly don't remember how I wrote or did the songs. Or the sessions. They all become very much a blur. And each album is like that. It may be that there are different locations, it may take longer, shorter, or whatever, but it's always something that just happened.

If you heard my records and no one told you, I don't think you'd know whether it's a band or one guy.

Are things getting better with each generation? Yes. It's quite interesting to be living in these times, for me to witness an African-American being elected president. It's quite extraordinary.

I made the record that my life had me make. Each one is like a diary.

I don't think about the styles. I write whatever comes out and I use whatever kind of instrumentation works for those songs.

I couldn't tell you what I am going to do next 'cause I have no idea, but I am open to anything.

When I hear music, it's visual; I see things.

I always read the Capitol as f—ked up pansexuality, everybody is doing everybody. Back to Greek and Roman times! It’s all happening.

Being free is a state of mind.

I am still into the people I listened to growing up, so I completely remember what is like to be a fan, I haven't changed.

Everything that I make I use.

I think that we have to be very careful and get back into the loop, get back to nature. Get back to God and not let the technology send us somewhere that we're going to regret.

If you look at the guys in the '70s, like Led Zeppelin, they had bigger planes than we do, they had more money. But they weren't singing about it.

I'm very much about the environment, I'm very much about health, about being able to, at the very least, eat organic, whole foods that are healthy for us. And then, of course, everyone being able to eat and at least have a humane way to live. There's enough for everybody, but unfortunately, there's a lot of greed and a lot of ego.

It was amazing to me that, all of a sudden, I was hearing my music on the radio and coming out of cars.

I was watching an interview with Martin Scorcese concerning Raging Bull, which is one of my favorite films, and he was talking about how he'd worked with a lot of guys who weren't quote-unquote "actors," like Joe Pesce and Frank Vincent. Scorcese was very smart in the way that he cast, because you don't know where you're going to find the right person who can carry a role and summon that emotion you're looking for.

I was an actor when I was a teenager and it could have been the direction that I headed in. But music and my relationship with music is quite deep, and it really is the nucleus of my creativity. So I gave up acting so I could pursue music fully, and I never thought about really going back. And then [director] Lee Daniels met me and wanted to work with me, and that's how it started.

I'm just as white as I am black, and I'm just as Russian Jew as I am West Indian.

I knew what I wanted to do from the time I was 5.

I want to do interiors, furniture. I want to do architecture, although I'm not an architect. Nor am I a trained interior designer.

That's a big gift when people say to you that a song helped them or brought them to some place in their life where they needed to be.

I just live my life and try to be present. When I'm present in the moment and something comes, I can capture it, because it doesn't come from me, it's out there.

I want to get away, I want to fly away. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm looking forward to going out at the concert with a clear head, with a clear mind, with a clear spirit and experiencing whatever it is. It's great.

Things that would shock us years ago are like nothing now.

My mother's side of the family is from the Bahamas, and I spent time there on and off when I was growing up. It's the place where I feel at peace.

I'm more hungry now than I was 11 years ago. Which is great because I see a lot of artists that have been out for a long period of time. They get kind of fat.

I've always had to deal with being biracial, even in music. When I came on the scene, I'd go to these record labels, and they'd say things like, "Lenny Kravitz. That's a weird name." I'm brown-skinned and I've got these dreadlocks and I've got this Jewish last name.

I'm half Jewish, I'm half black, I look in-between. I dress funny. I play all these different styles of music on one record. It's like, What is he doing?

I enjoy what people at the concert give me and I can't do it without them, so it's really an exchange of energy that snowballs back and forth and becomes something that's very satisfying and very magical.

God is always in my life, and that's the most important thing to me.

I didn't really listen to rock 'n' roll until I moved to LA. We would ditch school, go get high, put on Zeppelin IV and just bug out.

We have so many distractions. We're losing the family unit. We're losing the one-on-one. We're becoming extremely narcissistic. And we have to be careful about that. There's a lot to deal with out there.

Race in this country is still the elephant in the room that no one wants to discuss.

I'm just looking for interesting roles and giving acting the respect it deserves.

There's certain things in life that I love. One is architecture. And music, culture, food, people. New Orleans has all of that.

Oasis are not just influenced by the Beatles; they actually take stuff. Then they get praised.

God said, Here. Have it. Enjoy it. I'm gonna be miserable?

The idea of having to conform to someone else's ideal is unacceptable. I'm gonna be me. And if I can't be me, then I'd rather not do it.

I'm always sort of reflecting on what I do on what I've done. Usually before I make a new album, I'll listen to the previous albums just to see where I've been.