Questlove People Quotations

My theory is that nine times out of ten, if there's a depression, more a social depression than anything, it brings out the best art in black people. The best example is, Reagan and Bush gave us the best years of hiphop.

Crack offered a lot of money to the inner-city youth who didn't go to college. Which enabled them to become businessmen. I know about maybe five people in the entertainment industry who did their peak work as a result of crack usage.

When you first start off, you see what other people have and quietly say, "I want that."

I was born at a very crucial time. I consider 1968 to be the Mason Dixon line between pre- and post-civil rights generation ideas, whereas a lot of people born before '68 they kind of went into that Moses mentality. Like, I'm not going to make it, you know, I don't have any hope.

I hear a lot of cries of socialism and certainly real disguises of "Why should I share my money with these people?" We have to get back to "we." It's important to get back to "we" not just "I."

Every time a new record started, people exhaled with pleasure, or their bodies moved automatically. I really started getting high off of the euphoric exclamations. Every record I put on was like a baptism.

I believe that the only people who really, truly benefit from any of the policies of Republicans are the wealthy. I'm in that 1 percent tax bracket, but I'm not a man of wealth.

Half the time, my job is basically to talk people off the ledge. It's more psychological than just me picking up some sticks and counting, "1, 2, 3, 4."

In the 2000s, I became an artist. I started preserving and educating. I became more obsessed with making iPod playlists for people.

I'm not one of those people who's so blinded by my own work and my sweat. It's kind of risky writing a memoir when you're really part of a larger universe.

I don't have friends, and it's hard for me to make new friends. Right now, the people that are in my life are the people that I work with.

And even though people like to furrow their brow like they suspect you're not being honest about yourself, the truth is that they worry that you're not serving their idea of you.

Hip-hop is so much about character and caricature that people just see you as a character. Very rarely are you flesh and bone to people.

The only mofos in my circle are people that I can learn from.