Lenny Kravitz Quotations

Change is growth. For me it has been a very spiritual and musical rebirth.

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

My dream is to become a farmer. Just a Bohemian guy pulling up his own sweet potatoes for dinner.

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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 was taught by my grandfather that anything that your mind can conceive, you can have. It's a reality.

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

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 very important to vote. People died for this right.

Confusion makes people uncomfortable. They can't put their finger on me.

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.

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.

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

My career has been a gradual climb. I think that's part of the reason why I've had longevity.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

God forbid you sing about love. It's a lost concept.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Race in this country is still the elephant in the room that no one wants to discuss.

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.

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

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

I'm in this for the long haul. I've been making music my whole life.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

God gave me the gift to be able to play instruments and I have to play.

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

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

I have a great time with my band and on the stage we get along well.

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

I am trying to get closer to God.

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

I feel like I'm only in the beginning of my career. I've only made five albums. It's not a lot.

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

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 don't think about the styles. I write whatever comes out and I use whatever kind of instrumentation works for those songs...A lot of people don't listen to the lyrics, really. A lot of people pretty much only listen to the chorus.

I wouldn't play together with someone who likes to control everything like me.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

In my environments, lighting is always very important.

Love , creativity, and opportunity is in the air. Take it in and do your thing.

Love is the most powerful energy there is.

There's certain things in life that I love. One is architecture. And music, culture, food, people. New Orleans has all of that.

Later on in life I was like, "Wow!" because that's exactly how it was. They don't care that you're mixed. They see you as one color.

To let go of the illusion that I'm in control is an important lesson, because I tend to be a person who likes to be in control, not only of my art but of my life and things around me, and it can be healthy up to a certain point, but at the end of the day, we have to go on faith and learn to let go and ride the wave.

I honestly don't remember how I wrote or did the songs. Or the sessions. They all become very much a blur. And each album is like that. It may be that there are different locations, it may take longer, shorter, or whatever, but it's always something that just happened.

I was in Paris last year, where there's a great appreciation of many different aspects of African culture and of black culture. The music... the art... whatever... And I kind of went with that.

The idea of having to conform to someone else's ideal is unacceptable. I'm gonna be me. And if I can't be me, then I'd rather not do it.

I haven't thought about making a music film, but if I did, that would be a very interesting idea.

None of those material possessions do anything to make your life any better.... I know a lot of people who have a lot of everything, and they're absolutely the most miserable people in the world. So it won't do anything for you unless you're a happy person and can have peace with yourself.

Being free is a state of mind.

We have so many distractions. We're losing the family unit. We're losing the one-on-one. We're becoming extremely narcissistic. And we have to be careful about that. There's a lot to deal with out there.

My mother always told me to embrace both sides of my background. And she also taught me one very useful thing when I was going to first grade. She said, "You're Bahamian and African-American on one side, and Russian-Jewish on the other. You're no more one than the other, and it's beautiful that you have all this. It makes your life all the more rich. But society will see you only as black."

I've lived my life dealing with everybody. And that's how it's always been for me.

I’ll be quite frank with you — I didn’t know about Hunger Games — so when I’m telling kids and they say, ‘Who are you playing?’ and I say Cinna, they go, ‘Oh you’re playing the gay guy.’ That was an actual answer. I’ve never brought that up yet. That’s how they perceived it. So I thought about it, and I read the book and I don’t see that he is or isn’t [gay]. He’s a designer, he’s a stylist, he has gold eyeliner—that doesn’t mean anything either way.

You need to open up so that more comes through. And you can just feel that when your ego is not in the way and when you're letting it be what it wants to be. You have to let it be what it wants to be as opposed to what you think it should be.

I find cooking to be the one thing that relaxes me. I don't get to do it often . . .

We should take time out to really love; we should take time out to find out who we are.

The way I was raised and the people that I grew up around for the most part were very humble people, and I appreciate all that they taught me, and their energy and their magnanimity help keep me grounded.

I'm looking forward to going out at the concert with a clear head, with a clear mind, with a clear spirit and experiencing whatever it is. It's great.

I don't pull, I just receive.

I'm experiencing the mood to go out and share the music. I don't look at these concerts as a platform for people to watch me, look at me. No, a tour is about an interaction. A thing, myself, a band, and the people who support what I do and enjoy what I do.

I never sit down to write or say, "Today, I have to record something." I wait to hear it and then I go for it.

I enjoy what people at the concert give me and I can't do it without them, so it's really an exchange of energy that snowballs back and forth and becomes something that's very satisfying and very magical.

I'm very much about the environment, I'm very much about health, about being able to, at the very least, eat organic, whole foods that are healthy for us. And then, of course, everyone being able to eat and at least have a humane way to live. There's enough for everybody, but unfortunately, there's a lot of greed and a lot of ego.

Things that would shock us years ago are like nothing now.

I feel like my best work is in front of me. I'm in the studio now, and I'm having an amazing time making this new album. It's something I can't help.