Lenny Kravitz Quotes

51 quotations by Lenny Kravitz

You're never promised your next breath.

You can be around 100 people and be completely alone. People don't realize what it's really like.

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.

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.

Today, people are more into the glitz and the glamour of everything. We don't even read the inside of records anymore.

There's definitely an old school element to my music, but I also think it's modern.

There are so many people that don't believe in themselves and don't have faith.

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 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.

The image is an image.

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.

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 feel they have to live that stereotypical lifestyle in order to be a rock star. You don't have to shoot heroin and act a certain way to be a rock and roll musician.

Oasis are not just influenced by the Beatles; they actually take stuff. Then they get praised.

My mother gave lots of good advice and had a lot to say. As you get older, you realize everything she said was true.

My first guitar, a Fender Jazz Master, I traded it in for a Les Paul Deluxe.

Music is my life, it is a reflection of what I go through.

It's very important to vote. People died for this right.

It's like a dream to come to Spain and stay for a couple of years and get somebody to teach me Spanish music.

It's a trip to have a Greatest Hits record. It's a trip.

It was amazing to me that, all of a sudden, I was hearing my music on the radio and coming out of cars.

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.

If you ask a hundred people, they all give you different answers.

If I were white, I'd get less criticism.

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'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'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've been compared to hundreds of artists, which just goes to show you that I'm not any one thing at all.

I've always been into films. I've been offered lots of films but they've always been these very stereotypical roles. They wanted me to play some gangster or street guy, or pimp, drug addict.

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?

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 wouldn't play together with someone who likes to control everything like 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 was taught by my grandfather that anything that your mind can conceive, you can have. It's a reality.

I think it'd be a real nightmare to put a record out and sell 20 million copies and then that's it.

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.

I mean, there are only so many notes. What makes something original is how you put it together.

I made the record that my life had me make. Each one is like a diary.

I knew what I wanted to do from the time I was 5.

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 just need to know that I did the very best I could and that I was true to myself.

I identify with women more than men. I guess I have a strong feminine side.

I don't think about the styles. I write whatever comes out and I use whatever kind of instrumentation works for those songs.

I couldn't tell you what I am going to do next 'cause I have no idea, but I am open to anything.

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.

God is always in my life, and that's the most important thing to me.

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.

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.

A lot of people pretty much only listen to the chorus.

A lot of people don't listen to the lyrics, really.

A dramatic thing, the first time you stand up to your dad.