Commemorates Def Quotes

Why do I need ID to get ID?
If I had ID, I wouldn't need ID. ~ Mos Def

I think that Mos Def is the best actor, but when you talk about rappers in films, I don't really think the quality of the acting is most important because most rappers are put in movies because of the personality and people want to see that. ~ Morris Chestnut

Live now for the promise of the Infinite ~ Mos Def

I can scare the pants off the holiest ghost. ~ Def Leppard

Make today's solid ground out of yesterday's quicksand. ~ Mos Def

I don't have advice for people on how to dress. People should dress based on what they find beautiful. My best advice: Keep your clothes clean. ~ Mos Def

Restlessness is my nemesis/ It's hard to just chill and sit still ~ Mos Def

Mos Def is a name that I built and cultivated over the years it's a name that the streets taught me a figure of speech that was given to me by the culture and by my environment and I feel I've done quite a bit with that name and it's time to expand and move on. ~ Mos Def

My presence speaks volumes before I say a word. ~ Mos Def

Everything's got space between it, the planets, trees, your eyes. Your eyes get too close together, it's a whole different world. You can lose perspective. ~ Mos Def

Mos Def is one of the most creative, intelligent human beings I've had the opportunity to work with. He is fun. The entire time, he would go in and out of different characters, just for the fun of it. Awesome energy. ~ Jill Scott

def leppard lyric from Rock of Ages: It's better to burn out than fade away. This is not a Curt Cobain quote. He was quoting them !!!!! ~ Victoria Danann

Being black and speaking properly are not mutually exclusive. My father was an African, and he spoke beautifully at home. Nelson Mandela speaks beautifully. Should Mandela put his hat on backwards and say, 'Yo, homey, this is Nelson. Yo, Winnie, yo, this is def'? ~ Franklyn Ajaye

It didn't occur to me that I was glistening with sweat and wearing a bikini top until they turned off the bikes, pulled off their helmets and turned to scope me out. To make my own personal cliché perfect, Def Leppard's Pour Some Sugar On Me blasted through the radio. I winced – I must look like a white-trash princess from hell, basking outside my trailer in a bikini to outdated butt rock. ~ Joanna Wylde

I've always loved rhyming. I love language. ~ Mos Def

Justin Bieber is signed to Def Jam, and I don't believe in touching nothing that ain't mine. I want someone to give me the same respect - don't touch nothing that's mine. I still want what I want. But Justin Bieber is definitely a friend of a family. Me, Drake, Wayne. We rock with the little homie, so he a part of us in heart. ~ Birdman

I can't control what people think. I'm not trying to manipulate people's thoughts or sentiments. I write all the time. You have to experience life, make observations, and ask questions. It's machine-like how things are run now in hip-hop, and my ambitions are different. ~ Mos Def

I'm inspired by playwrights, novelists, poets: The value of language has been a lifelong passion of mine. I enjoy it. I'm good at it. ~ Mos Def

I ain't no perfect man I'm tryna do the best that I can with what it is I have. ~ Mos Def

I don't care about what brand you are, I'm concerned what type of man you are, what your principles and standards are. ~ Mos Def

We can be beautiful and feel beautiful about who we are everyday. ~ Mos Def

I'm a little different from the average dude because I'm on high-def TV now. ~ Ray Romano

To me, it's like happiness is about happiness, but happiness is a fight. ~ Mos Def

I don't wanna be def. Death. Dead. This Burger Twin nappykin just got served as my will, BEOTCH! The fries here suck, by the way. If I die, don't feed my son your shitty fries. Don't give my son to the creepy child molester king you put in your commercials either. What the fuck is wrong with that guy? He's got a normal body and a plastic face that is always smiley. It's not right, man. It's just not right. My ears feel funny. ~ Tara Sivec

I don't dislike rappers or hip-hop or people who like it. I went to the Def Jam tour in Manchester in the '80s when rap was inspirational. Public Enemy were awesome. But it's all about status and bling now, and it doesn't say anything to me. ~ Noel Gallagher

Hip-Hop went from selling crack to smoking it ~ Mos Def

Hip-hop is the last true folk art. ~ Mos Def

Good art provides people with a vocabulary about things they can't articulate. ~ Mos Def

I stretched my arms towards the sky like blades of tall grass
The sun beat between my shoulders like carnival drums
I sat still in hopes that it would help my wings grow
So then I could really be fly
And then she arrived
Like day break inside a railway tunnel
Like the new moon, like a diamond in the mines
Like high noon to a drunkard, sudden
She made my heart beat in a now-now time signature
Her skinny canvas for ultraviolet brushstrokes
She was the sun's painting
She was a deep cognac color
Her eyes sparkled like lights along the new city
She lips pursed as if her breath was too sweet
And full for her mouth to hold
I said, "You are the beautiful, the stress of mathematics."
I said, "For you, I would peel open the clouds like new fruit
And give you lightning and thunder as a dowry
I would make the sky shed all of it's stars, light and rain
And I would clasp the constellations across your waist
And I would make the heavens your cape
And they would be pleased to cover you
They would be pleased to cover you
May I please, cover you, please ~ Mos Def

That idea of peace and love toward humanity shouldn't be nationalistic or denominational. It should be a chief concern for all mankind. ~ Mos Def

It's possible and available to any artist to be himself or herself on their own terms, to be accepted and embraced by black people. You don't have to be a thug to get love from black people. ~ Mos Def

I don't want to waste anyone's time or money. I want to give people some truth and positive heart lift. ~ Mos Def

Breathe in ... inhale vapors from bright stars that shine,
Breathe out ... weed smoke retrace the skyline. ~ Mos Def

Why did one straw break the camel's back?
Here's the secret:
The million other straws underneath it. ~ Mos Def

I'm blacked than midnight on Broadway and Myrtle ~ Mos Def

She heard music. Angels singing? she thought, dizzy. It seemed odd for angels to sing after table sex. She managed to swallow on a throat wildly dry. "Music," she murmured.
"My phone. In my pants. Don't care."
"Oh. Not angels."
"No. Def Leppard. ~ Nora Roberts

Hard rock for me is AC/DC, Def Leppard, Tesla, Kiss. Metal tends to be louder, ruder, darker, like Judas Priest, Slayer, Iron Maiden. ~ Eddie Trunk

Life is a great big beautiful three-ring circus. There are those on the floor making their lives among the heads of lions and hoops of fire, and those in the stands, complacent and wowed, their mouths stuffed with popcorn.

I know less now than ever about life, but I do know its size. Life is enormous. Much grander than what we've taken for ourselves, so far.

When the show is over and the tent is packed, the elephants, lions and dancing poodles are caged and mounted on trucks to caravan to the next town. The clown's makeup has worn, and his bright, red smile has been washed down a sink. All that is left is another performance, another tent and set of lights. We rest in the knowledge: the show must go on.

Somewhere, behind our stage curtain, a still, small voice asks why we haven't yet taken up juggling. My seminars were like this. Only, instead of flipping shiny, black bowling balls or roaring chainsaws through the air, I juggled concepts.

The world is intrinsically tied together. All things march through time at different intervals but move ahead in one fashion or another.

Though we may never understand it, we are all part of something much larger than ourselves - something anchoring us to the spot we have mentally chosen. We sniff out the rules, through spiritual quests and the sciences. And with every new discovery, we grow more confused.

Our inability to connect what seems illogical to unite and to def ~ Christopher Hawke

I'm retiring the Mos Def name after 2011. I'm actually doing it. ~ Mos Def

I've always loved music and I love the language, which is a huge reason why I'm part of theater. ~ Mos Def

To me, playing an instrument and singing, all of these different things are just as natural to me as rhyming. ~ Mos Def

I don't mind being black. I'm black out loud. It's more than the people that they are, it's the condition that they represent. ~ Mos Def

Guy: What has nine arms and sucks?
Me: What?
Guy: Def Leppard. ~ Jason Myers

Across from the famous jewelry store on Fifth Avenue at Fifty-Seventh Street, we sat in the back of a graffiti-covered white box truck watching the world go by on the surveillance vehicle's hidden high-def camera. So far there had been no sign of the thieves. Or even Audrey Hepburn. ~ James Patterson

Look at music: I've always loved hiphop and rap, and now there's this whole progressive movement, with De La Soul and Mos Def, Common. It's some of the best stuff around. ~ Ryan Phillippe

My comedy has no color, it's for everybody, black, white, Latino, Asian. It's not a pro-black show, not a def jam show; it's just straight, wholesome type of humor. ~ Bruce Bruce

I believe the projects were a social experiment; we were laboratory rats stacked on top of each other, and people just knew, inherently, that there was something wrong. There's not a lot of regard for the property by the residents. ~ Mos Def

I began to fear that Mos Def was being treated as a product, not a person, so I've been going by Yasiin since '99. At first it was just for friends and family, but now I'm declaring it openly. ~ Mos Def