Haloed Def Quotes

I get reminded a lot of the time that my life is a little bit different, but I'm just trying to keep it as regular as possible because I like it that way. ~ Mos Def

The quality of life depends upon the ability of society to teach it's members how to live in harmony with their environment-def ined first as family, then the community, then the world and its resources. ~ Ellen Swallow Richards

It's one thing to be the greatest; it's another thing to be necessary. The best are the most necessary: those who take less than they give and love more than they hate. ~ Mos Def

Record companies are not necessarily interested in you realizing your artistic dream. The bottom line is that they got to sell records. ~ Mos Def

There's probably a bunch of Power Stripe floating through the Def Jam offices right now. ~ Method Man

Me: It will get better, right? Eventually, it will get better.

Scarlett: I'm sorry I'm not the type to lower our discourse to emoji use since you totally deserve a smiley face right now. Yes, it will get better.

Me: Ha. It's just. Whatever. Sorry to keep whining.

Scarlett: That's what I'm here for. BTW, that email you forwarded? My guess: TOTALLY A SECRET ADMIRER.

Me: You've read too many books. I'm being set up. And stop YELLING AT ME.

Scarlett: No way. I didn't say he was a vampire. I said he was a secret admirer. Most def.

Me: Wanna take bets?

Scarlett: You should just know by now that I'm always right. It's my one magic power.

Me: What's mine?

Scarlett: TBD.

Me: Thanks a lot.

Scarlett: Kidding. You are strong. That's your power, girl.

Me: My arms are v. toned from stress-eating ALL the cookies. Hand to mouth. Repeat 323 times. Hard-core workout.

Scarlett: Seriously, for a second, J? Just because you're strong doesn't mean you shouldn't ask for help sometimes. Remember that. I'm here, ALWAYS, but you might want to take up that offer from someone local.

Me: Whatever. Ugh. Thanks, Dr. Phil. I miss you!

Scarlett: Miss you too! Go write back to SN. NOW. NOW. NOW. Now tell me the truth? Anyone at your school unusually pale? ~ Julie Buxbaum

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

AC/DC, Def Leppard, Alice Cooper - I learned stories of all these guys. That's when I fell in love with Queen, which is one of my favorite bands of all time ... I started paying attention to what made music good. I started paying attention to why I liked it. ~ Rico Love

There are a lot of people who call themselves teachers or leaders, but they're really just propagandists. ~ Mos Def

Aging on camera is just very hard. I love my age. I feel good about myself but high definition television is not kind. You don't even look like yourself in high-def. It just makes every little line on your face more exaggerated so it ends up aging you. It's like you're watching yourself seven years older. ~ Lisa Edelstein

My radio's loud like a fire alarm:
The floor vibrates, the walls cave in,
The bass makes my eardrums seem thin.
Def sounds in my ride, yes the front and back ...
You would think it was a party, not a Cadillac! ~ LL Cool J

People consider Black Star a great album, and I think it's a classic album. But the fact is, both me and Mos Def have made better albums since Black Star. ~ Talib Kweli

I can think of no one more relevant and credible in the hip-hop community to build upon Def Jam's fantastic legacy and move the company into its next groundbreaking era. ~ Jay-Z

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 never had any ambitions of being a movie star or anything like that, but you know, this is nice. ~ Mos Def

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

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

The dimensions of video game characters, even when they're scanned from real people, are beefed up with exaggerated proportions in games like Def Jam: Fight for NY to give them more pop. ~ Cliff Bleszinski

Sadie heard a flurry of wing snap as yellow, orange, and tiger-striped moths flew into the light. Dean stood haloed by moths that pulsed like slips of paper along his shoulders and arms. He lifted each one on his finger, naming them for her. ~ Susan Tekulve

History has proven that it's impossible to crush the artist. There's always gonna be a need for somebody to write a poem or sing a song about something, about life - that makes it real. There's the word that goes beyond the word. ~ 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

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

Live now for the promise of the Infinite ~ Mos Def

Wait!" Alex yells up to the driver. "Stop! Stop the car!"

Up close, it's beautiful. Two stories tall. He can't imagine how somebody was able to put together something like this so fast.

It's a mural of himself and Henry, facing each other, haloed by a bright yellow sun, depicted as Han and Leia. Henry in all white, starlight in his hair. Alex dressed as a scruffy smuggler, a blaster at his hip. A royal and a rebel, arms around each other.

He snaps a photo on his phone, and fingers shaking, types out a tweet: Never tell me the odds. ~ Casey McQuiston

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

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

I have mad brims. ~ Mos Def

I'm just an artist and I'm doin' what I like to do. ~ Mos Def

The moment you start thinking it's hopeless, then it is. [But], if you think it's gonna get better, it really does. Life is a test. ~ Mos Def

Def Leppard is a rock band that can sing. ~ Vivian Campbell

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

What made me want to become a recording artist; I was the first artist that was repeatedly asked by a label to record with them. That label was Def Jam Records. ~ Chuck D

The world has wanted me to speak differently than I speak. I speak like my mom. I speak like the whitest white dude. I speak like a "Def Comedy Jam" comedian doing an impression of a white guy. ~ Jordan Peele

I tell people all the time, I've always loved music and I love the language, which is a huge reason why I'm part of theater. But, I didn't wanna do all of this. I would've been satisfied to do it, like, on the weekends among friends, and to have a regular job. ~ Mos Def

Crack mothers, crack babies and AIDS patients
Youngbloods can't spell, but they could rock you in PlayStation. ~ Mos Def

Speech is my hammer bang the world into shape now let it fall - HUNGH ~ Mos Def

I shall have spent my life in railway stations
Nearly departing
For catastrophes,
All for love
And my heart haloed with the madness of love.
Nothing is quite so beautiful as the trains I've missed … ~ Jules Laforgue

I don't wanna get into that space where a lot of guys now, their solo album is like eight or 10 songs with other people, you don't get an idea of who this guy is. I just wasn't interested in that. ~ Mos Def

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

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

So So Def has been one of the most successful and consistent labels in the game in the last 10 years. ~ Jermaine Dupri

The passage that he had found in the book had been riddled with ambiguities and contradictions only reserved for those most valiant in overriding their legalistic forbearance into a necessary frenzy that would allow them to suitably work up a case for one side or the other on how the Law, without the possibility of misinterpretation, states If ABC, then DEF - or for the sake of acknowledging the counterargument first as a courtroom tactic, the case might also be made that the Law states the antithesis of the aforementioned If ABC, then DEF, but gives allowance within reasonable parameters for a provisional XYZ to be granted in exceptional cases. And thus, it was a matter not so much of making one's case in a clear and logical sense, but one for the lawyers to battle out in the arena of pathos, as it was clearly the emotional pleas that could evoke a sense of sympathy in the courtroom and overturn otherwise painstaking endeavors at using the tools at hand to make pleas based upon incontrovertible facts. ~ Ashim Shanker

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

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

I feel like being into the beat of your own drum has become too prominent in the culture. ~ Mos Def

It wouldn't be fair to cast aspersions on an entire cultural movement based on the actions of a few. To quote my grandfather, 'One bad apple don't spoil the whole bunch.' ~ Mos Def

He fell in love with Manhattan's skyline, like a first-time brothel guest falling for a seasoned professional. He mused over her reflections in the black East River at dusk, dawn, or darkest night, and each haloed light-in a tower or strung along the jeweled and sprawling spider legs of the Brooklyn Bridge's spans-hinted at some meaning, which could be understood only when made audible by music and encoded in lyrics. ~ Arthur Phillips

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 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