Macklemore Quotes

No freedom til we're equal...damn right I support it.

Whatever God you believe in, we come from the same one

The trust that I once built has been betrayed. But I'd rather live tellin' the truth and be judged for my mistakes, than falsely held up, given props, loved and praised.

A life lived for art, is never a life wasted.

You need to get outside of your comfort zone to write songs that are interesting, songs that are compelling, songs that are different from what other people are writing.

Just because you miss someone doesn't mean you need them back in your life. Missing is just a part of moving on.

I just want to give the people 100% of myself as an artist.

I don't write a great song every day. I don't write a great song every couple weeks. It comes in such random times.

It's just way more fun making art, growing, grinding for a fan base, and traveling the world with a friend.

I'm someone that examines culture and tries to break down why things are the way that they are whether its hip-hop music, sex, race, or consumerism. I try to examine it and scrutinize it to the point where I can write a song.

I'm a very conceptual writer.

Thrift shopping is really just an extension of me being that same kid and going into a place that's completely unconventional that has really endless possibilities in terms of outfits that you can put together and really just expressing yourself.

I grew up in the spoken-word community. Before everybody had a home studio, or before we could get booked for shows, open mics were the only way to be heard by other people. It really gave me a chance to develop as a performer. Reading a piece of poetry with no beat in front of 20 people is way more challenging than rocking for 10,000 people.

I think what's wrong with the fashion world, particularly men's fashion, is the lack of creativity behind it.

When I write, I don't have any expectation of what kind of song it will become or who it might reach.

Bullying is a national epidemic.

I'm not more or less conscious than any other rapper out there.

One man's trash that's another man's come up.

I shop at thrift shops probably five times a week.

Vote Love means vote equality. It means vote change. It means vote whats right for humanity.

I definitely use 'smiling while rapping' as a tool in the booth. I want to have fun while recording.

We sell our dreams and our potential to escape through that buzz.

My relationship with God is as strong as the time and energy I put into connecting with God.

I played baseball up until my freshman year of high school. That was my main sport. I played third base.

If I'm using drugs and alcohol, it means that I've given up on my fullest potential.

You can only watch injustice go on for so long until you're compelled to say something. To speak out against it.

Strip away the fear, underneath it's all the same love

Reading a piece of poetry with no beat in front of 20 people is way more challenging than rocking for 10,000 people.

Music is therapy. Music moves people. It connects people in ways that no other medium can. It pulls heart strings. It acts as medicine.

I can write for weeks or months sometimes and edit it down to a song. I feel like it's a piece of music that will hopefully stand the test of time and hopefully capture a moment in history if I'm doing it correctly and honestly.

Live tonight, cuz you can't take it with ya.

A world so hateful some would rather die than be who they are.

Drug culture is extremely prevalent and probably most people know somebody whose life has been affected by drugs, if it's not their own or in their own family, they have friends. It's a never-ending process.

If I can be an example of getting sober, then I can be an example for starting over

Us as rappers underestimate the power and effects that we have on these kids

Sampling is kind of prehistoric, given the technology and the textures you can create.

I'm as honest as I can be.

I'd always thought that if I could get sober and stay sober, I would be able to have a career making music. My drug and alcohol addiction was the one thing holding me back. I had finally gotten the tools to stay sober, and it was just a matter of writing the songs.

My partner has to have good sized bones.

I put myself in the place of the listener when editing my writing. The last thing that I want to do is be preached at and told who to be or what to think when listening to an artist. However, I do want to be inspired. There's a fine line.

I learned from my teachers but became through my music

You have major labels that are willing to take unconventional approaches because the old model is crumbling in front of us.

I've never been a religious person. I've been a spiritual person since I was about 15, 16, when I was first introduced to Psilocybin [mushrooms]. That really opened me up to thinking about the universe in a different way, and coming to significant realizations about my connection to something greater than me.

I wanted to get clean. I knew that my highest potential, the place that I was most spiritual, the place that I was the most rich in terms of my life, and my livelihood, and my art and my creativity, was when I was sober.

I think that civil rights issues take a lot of time to develop.

Michael Jordan was a cultural icon that everybody on the playground wanted to be. The Bulls dynasty was a huge part of my childhood and it was the peak of my basketball interest as a kid.

Consciousness rap - a term that I don't think exactly exists but gets thrown around a lot - is not exactly popular.

If I was gay, I would think hip-hop hates me. Have you read the YouTube comments lately? 'Man, that's gay' gets dropped on the daily.