Questlove Quotes

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

Hip-hop is an instant gratification, winners and losers circle, and often those who are losing give up after three or four, five years.

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

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

Funk never dies. It is eternal. It just smells a little different from time to time.

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.

Music has the power to stop time. But music also keeps time.

Just because the laws were changed doesn't mean that the attitudes have changed.

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.

We have to get back to "we." It's important to get back to "we" not just "I."

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

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.

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.

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.

All we sell is the Greatest feeling on Earth

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.

You can't live off of just greasy fatty foods and stayin' up till six in the mornin' just partyin'. You gotta take care of yourself.

I feel like the downfall of any person is the second an artist starts celebrating their work themselves, that becomes problematic.

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 think crack happened by accident. I'm part conspiracy theorist, because you can't develop something that dangerous and have it not be planned.

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.

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

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

After 2001, everyone in the Soulquarians blew up, which wasn't expected. We all got the success, and then everybody froze.

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

It's funny, I can see the science in how music is made with other artists, but it's hard for me to dissect my own thing.

My parents were really strict about me not watching cartoons.

It's easy for me to say, "Oh yeah, that's the self-saboteur move that most artists pull whenever they're afraid."

I hate videos. I'm meticulous on everything from cover art, fonts, productions, mixing. But when it comes to videos, I just feel so defeated.

The Chronic represented everything that I hated about hip-hop as a fan, but then later represented everything that I stood for as a musician and engineer.

Meaninglessness takes hold because meaninglessness is addictive.

I do count on a changing of tides. All too often, what could be a critics' darling today becomes tomorrow's target. I don't want to be too blasé about it.

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.

I cannot keep a girlfriend longer than seven months. I have 12 jobs. I don't have time for my personal life. I'm fully aware that this is the sacrifice.

I want to be as healthy as I can be so I can make it past 50; make it past 60 and make it past 70.

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

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

Switching off perfection switched on the human quality

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 think all of this—The Roots and DJing included—was meant to prepare me for The Tonight Show.

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.

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.

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.

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.

For anyone that's ever had a musical breakthrough in their career, it's always followed by the departure period right after.

Kurt Cobain represents a very legit, realistic outlook. Before that, in my head, to be a white artist was to be privileged.

Jay-Z is a dude that can give you a hundred 'Simpsons' quotes, like, 'What you know about the monorail?'

I hate holidays because it's the quietest; it's the most deafening sound in my apartment.

Working with the artist elite can be like banging your head against the wall.