Questlove Quotes

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.”

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.

I really appreciate when people use their fame and their voice for more than just self-promotion, starting a dialogue about a topic or an issue much bigger than themselves.

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.

I don’t bask in the awards I’ve won, read my bank statements, I refuse. To me, that’s how you start losing the hunger.

In terms of being a ‘sneakerhead,’ there was one point where I was obsessively following every sneaker blog. That’s the beauty of Twitter: To get the heads up on what’s coming out.

We have to get back to “we.” It’s important to get back to “we” not just “I.”

My parents were really strict about me not watching cartoons.

I think the music comes first, then comes the fashion, and thus, the lifestyle. I believe it starts with music, and then the person delivering it delivers the lifestyle, the fashion. Madonna is a great example of that.

Classical music requires an immense amount of concentration, and I don’t know if I would’ve been that committed to that particular life.

I’m a 24-hour tweet machine, I’m a 24-hour blogger. When there’s no pressure on me, I can talk and write and lecture with the best of them. But put a deadline on me and I start getting writer’s block.

How do you plan a rebirth? I’m not sure you do. You just stand in the darkness until you can’t endure it any long, and then you move forward until you’re standing in the light.

There’s no such thing as success on an isolated level.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the average person can do about four things a day, like four real things a day.

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.

Switching off perfection switched on the human quality

During the 2008 election, I made clear to the Obama campaign that I don’t think it’s wise for me to force my personal political agenda on anyone.

The president is just the coach of a football team. You need the right support, the right stadium, the right players, the right staff. An excellent coach is not going to win games.

When you live your life through records, the records are a record of your life.

Part of me would just like to relax and have one job that pays me the amount I need to survive. And another part of me wants the creativity that comes out of struggle and frustration and fear. It’s a never-ending cycle, which must be how I want it, on some level.

My life’s goal is to find a happy medium for sampling to be not only legal but for the right parties to benefit from it. There have to be sampling laws. The survival of hiphop is based on that.

It’s a funny word, persistence. It means not giving up, but it also means just passing on through time.

Hip-hop is such a disposable art form from a business standpoint. It never treats its artists as art; it never treats its product as art.

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

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

I have a lot of those ‘Forrest Gump,’ I-was-there moments.

My first gig was at Radio City Music Hall when I was 13.

I want the ‘Roots’ biopic to be animated – I see Charles Schulz drawing us. I think it would be more hilarious with the voices of children.

I do secret stand-up shows around New York. I announce and tweet this to nobody – I get onstage and I do a quick five minutes.

To be hip-hop is much more than just rapping in the production. It is more in the attitude.

I keep moving through time and time keeps moving through me. And through that process, life takes shape. The question is what shape it is. I’m not the first person to ask that question, or to see how absurd it is to think there’s a real answer. Maybe life’s a circle.

Meaninglessness takes hold because meaninglessness is addictive.

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.

I prefer to unwind by DJing. I learned that from Mike D from the Beastie Boys. After a show, he would DJ. Once I saw that, I wanted to do that. And now DJing is like my lifeline. I love the power it represents.

Time will tell. Time is always telling. Time never stops telling.