Lenny Kravitz Quotes
Musician
It's very important to vote. People died for this right.
If you ask a hundred people, they all give you different answers.
I just need to know that I did the very best I could and that I was true to myself.
Every night is different, you never know what it's going to be like. I remember every night. I don't like to compare them.
I am not trying to change the world. I am just offering my gift that God gave me, and if somebody is moved by it, that's beautiful.
People see my photos and think I labor over my image and I'm this cool, brooding artist. But I'm just having fun with it.
People always accuse me of being motivational in a way, like it was a bad thing, but that's just how I was raised. My mom raised me in a positive environment, with lots of love in my heart, and that reflects in my music.
My dream is to become a farmer. Just a Bohemian guy pulling up his own sweet potatoes for dinner.
Change is growth. For me it has been a very spiritual and musical rebirth.
When I was a kid and I bought a record, I ripped that thing open, I wanted to know who was playing what, what studio it was cut at, who was the string arranger, who was the engineer.
I identify with women more than men. I guess I have a strong feminine side.
You're never promised your next breath.
I don't think about the styles. I write whatever comes out and I use whatever kind of instrumentation works for those songs.
The image that the public gets is whatever they perceive it to be. Everybody has an opinion, everybody has their own vision, so I don't know what my public image is. I have no idea.
I don't play the tuba.
Oasis are not just influenced by the Beatles; they actually take stuff. Then they get praised.
A dramatic thing, the first time you stand up to your dad.
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.
My first guitar, a Fender Jazz Master, I traded it in for a Les Paul Deluxe.
People don't realize it, but no one lives that rock and roll life 24-7. They think it's hundreds of bottles of champagne flowing and private jets and money. But there's a lot of time when you're traveling - time to think, time to be lonely. Sometimes it gets to you.
Music is my life, it is a reflection of what I go through.
For the last few years, it's been so chic for everybody to be miserable. Like if you're in with the cool crowd, you can't be happy.
It was amazing to me that, all of a sudden, I was hearing my music on the radio and coming out of cars.
I feel like I'm only in the beginning of my career. I've only made five albums. It's not a lot.
We weren't put here to be miserable. We were put here to do the best we can, and we should take our energy and improve our state of being.
I couldn't tell you what I am going to do next 'cause I have no idea, but I am open to anything.
If I were white, I'd get less criticism.
Confusion makes people uncomfortable. They can't put their finger on me.
I wasn't the kind of person that liked waiting for autographs or following them, I just liked to go to the shows, study their records, driving many, many hours to different states to go to concerts.
I made the record that my life had me make. Each one is like a diary.
I have a great time with my band and on the stage we get along well.
I am trying to get closer to God.
I mean, there are only so many notes. What makes something original is how you put it together.
A lot of people pretty much only listen to the chorus.
I always try to keep the circumstances in my life fresh. I like to change the physical environment I live in, change the people around me and try to experience things for the first time. I think that keeps one on their toes, creatively and spiritually.
If you listen to a lot of old funk records, the drums are really small. But you don't perceive it like that because the groove is so heavy.
Where I'm at in life, the women have got to come with something else, not just the body, but the mind and spirit. It usually trips them out, but that's the way it's going to be. I'm looking at the big picture.
The fans of 'The Hunger Games,' of the book, are very passionate. It's funny: Even at my concerts there are people holding up 'Cinna' signs.
My mother gave lots of good advice and had a lot to say. As you get older, you realize everything she said was true.
I wouldn't play together with someone who likes to control everything like me.
I've woken up from dreams and the whole song is there. I'm listening to it in my dreams. I consciously have to wake myself up and get a tape recorder because I hear it like a record.
I never sit down to write. When I'm moved, I do it. I just wait for it to come. You just hear it. I can't really describe writing. It's in my head.
It's a trip to have a Greatest Hits record. It's a trip.
My career has been a gradual climb. I think that's part of the reason why I've had longevity.
It's like a dream to come to Spain and stay for a couple of years and get somebody to teach me Spanish music.
God gave me the gift to be able to play instruments and I have to play.
There's definitely an old school element to my music, but I also think it's modern.
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.
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.
They think I'm being serious when actually I'm a very big clown. But you have to know me to see that. I'm constantly cracking up and cracking everybody else around me up.
The story that I wanna tell is pretty much about the way I grew up. Being bi-racial, growing up in a big city and being an artist.
God forbid you sing about love. It's a lost concept.
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.
God is always in my life, and that's the most important thing to me.
There are so many people that don't believe in themselves and don't have faith.
I was taught by my grandfather that anything that your mind can conceive, you can have. It's a reality.
If I had to associate myself with one song, it would probably be Let Love Rule. It's so simple and to the point. It speaks for itself.
I knew Slash in high school, but not very well. Just knew him as this kid that used to hang out in the hallway. Pretty much looked then the way he does now.
I've been compared to hundreds of artists, which just goes to show you that I'm not any one thing at all.
We're getting so pulled in by computers and technology, and our kids have their face in the computers all day. The human relationship is being diminished by this.
I'm in this for the long haul. I've been making music my whole life.
You can be around 100 people and be completely alone. People don't realize what it's really like.
I think it'd be a real nightmare to put a record out and sell 20 million copies and then that's it.
The loyalty rate isn't that high. I could have a big hit, then put out the next single, and they say, Oh yeah, who are you? Prove it again.
The image is an image.
A lot of people don't listen to the lyrics, really.
I knew what I wanted to do from the time I was 5.
Today, people are more into the glitz and the glamour of everything. We don't even read the inside of records anymore.
I've had to work very hard, and I don't really have a category or fit into any niche, so each time I come out with a new record, it's like, I'm a new guy.
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?
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 mean, look at the people we celebrate - a lot of people who really don't do anything. They just walk the red carpets and go to all the parties, and they're hooked up with the right people, so they're celebrities. But what for?
Race in this country is still the elephant in the room that no one wants to discuss.
The thing I love about acting is that it's got nothing to do with me; it's about bringing forth a director's vision. It's like a release. I'm glad it's come back into my life.
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.