Michael Franti Quotations

We can bomb the world to pieces, but we can't bomb it into peace.

You learn a lot when you're barefoot. The first thing is every step you take is different.

'Star Wars' is mythology. It's like Greek mythology or Shakespeare. It's the story of good versus evil over a very long span of time. The storytelling is universal and timeless.

I eat bags and bags of cashews. I've got them in the kitchen, and about ten feet away I've got another bowl on the kitchen table. In my backpack, I've always got a bag of cashews. I started eating them in the airports because that's the one food that you can find in every airport that's actually nutritious.

During my travels in Iraq, Israel, Gaza, Brazil, Indonesia, Japan, Europe and all over the United States, I have seen and heard the voices of people who want change. They want the stabilization of the economy, education and healthcare for all, renewable energy and an environmental vision with an eye on generations to come.

No life's worth more than any other, no sister worth less than any brother.

If we do not change our negative habits toward climate change, we can count on worldwide disruptions in food production, resulting in mass migration, refugee crises and increased conflict over scarce natural resources like water and farm land. This is a recipe for major security problems.

I'm not an idealist. I know we're not going to be living in a world that's peace and love all the time. But we can live in a world where we kill each other a lot less.

Music has the power to bring people together like no other art form.

Music is sunshine. Like sunshine, music is a powerful force that can instantly and almost chemically change your entire mood. Music gives us new energy and a stronger sense of purpose.

Johnny Cash was a rebel, not only just in the musical sense, but he was somebody who was for the people, and an advocate for labor, for workers, for prisoners, people who have been trapped by the criminal justice system.

I hope I inspire people to dream bigger than what they are living, but a dream within their reach.

The rap community has been singled out as more homophobic than other groups, but I don't think that's right. It's homophobic, all right, but no more so than the heavy-metal community or the Hollywood community or any other community.

We have a saying in my house, my kids and my girlfriend. We say, 'Be your best for the greater good, and rock out wherever you are.'

Rap has so many possibilities that need to be explored. There are different factions of rap, but some are in a rut. Rap doesn't have to be about boosting egos and grabbing your crotch and dissing women. There's a way to make political and social issues interesting and entertaining to the young rap audience.

It doesn't matter if you're black, white, gay, straight, come from different countries, different language... every single person is significant and is meaningful.

All the freaky people make the beauty of the world.

After a show, I'll get the 16-year-old white kid whose lip is pierced, his head is shaved and his parents hate him, and the young gangster from the screwed-up 'hood, and they say that now they realize there's someone out there who thinks like they do.

You get everything you could have ever wished for if you're willing to give that eternal bliss away to somebody else, to give it back.

I took a trip in 2004, a year after the war started in Iraq. I played music on the streets of Baghdad for Iraqi civilians. I'd also play for U.S. soldiers at night when they were off duty in the bars. Then I would talk to people, and I would film them and ask them about their life and the conflict.

I've always found that the poorer the places that I go, the more smiles I see, and the more happiness I see.

I always identified with that feeling of being an underdog. So I always was looking to connect with and meet people from other cultures, to experience people living a different life that I am.

Traveling to the Middle East and playing music for people on the street, for soldiers, for people in hospitals, and for people who lost their homes, and seeing people open up through the experience of music really restored my faith in music, in art, and in culture to change things.

With all the people hating and hurting each other, I don't understand how people could get upset about people of the same sex caring for each other.

Music was a central part of my childhood because my mother played organ and piano in the church, and that meant all us kids had to be in the church choir.

Music gives us new energy and a stronger sense of purpose.

My house was filled with music. We had a piano, and my brothers and sisters played instruments. Even though I was around it, I played basketball.

My greatest sense of accomplishment has come from having two amazing sons, but it's also a paradox in that the times when I felt like the biggest failure have been times when I felt like, as a parent, I wasn't making the right decisions or succeeding in the way that I should.

My favorite band of all time is The Clash. The thing I love about The Clash is they started out as guys who could barely play three chords. They dabbled in reggae, punk, rap, jazz. They came to a sound that could only be defined as The Clash. It was impossible to say what it was. I admire them for that.

People worry that gas prices are high and how they are affecting their pocket book. But they want to know about renewable energy. People are really starting to question things, and that's made people look to the future in a positive way.

I have moments all the time when I play.

Jamaica's a country of great dichotomy. On the one hand you have a tourist industry with great beaches and resorts, but on the other you have such great poverty and the violence that goes along with that.

I came up playing in both punk rock bands and hip-hop bands, and I found a more universal way of reaching people, especially with music that has a message to it.

I have a desire that I want to make people feel happy through my music. I'm always trying to find optimistic ways to express myself.

I'm always trying to find optimistic ways to express myself.

History shows that Americans believe in doing the right thing.

My usual day is I get up around 11 o'clock and do yoga and then eat afterwards. Then I have sound check and play soccer and do running with the guys in the band after sound check, and then do the show and eat dinner after the show and usually get to bed around 3 o'clock by the time we get everybody on the bus and get rolling.

My mother, she made sure all of us were treated the same and had the same opportunity to grow and develop, so that when we left the house, we could fly on our own. And she also knew when we got out into the world, we'd treat others that we came across with that same treatment and respect.

My mother birthed three children and she adopted myself and another African-American son. My adoptive parents were Finnish. I grew up in a white picket neighborhood.

Like sunshine, music is a powerful force that can instantly and almost chemically change your entire mood.

Recording in Jamaica is like nothing else. The studios are always closed in America. But in Jamaica, the studio doors are wide open, and there's music blasting out in the street. You can see the reaction of people immediately.

I think that fear comes about when there's things in the world that we want to change, things we're scared or angry about, and we can't change them, and so we become fearful; we develop anxiety.

My music is part of the quest I have to find new ways of telling stories, and also, I want to inspire people.

I went to Iraq as a listener. I just got tired of watching the news every night and hearing generals and politicians talking about the economics and the politics of the war, and never explaining the human cost of the war. I just wanted to go there and listen to people.

Our country was founded on immigration. We are all occupying Native American land here. At what point do we say 'It's our land, and nobody else can come here.'

When I first started, my songs were the politics of anger. As I got older and hopefully wiser, I wanted to be part of the politics of answers.

We would play songs live on stage, and then we'd watch their reaction we were receiving immediately, if people were dancing and singing along. If they weren't, then we'd go into the dressing rooms of the different NBA teams that we were playing in their arenas, and we'd change the songs right there.

Epitaph is a label that I've admired for a long time. It's kind of like a record label that would be my own personal record collection at home: punk rock, hip-hop, and great, classic, creative music.

The world can't have a global solution to climate change with U.S. action alone; and the world can't have a global solution without U.S. action.

To sit back and say, 'Oh, we're going to let the government do whatever they want, right or wrong,' is giving up.

When someone can't afford to wear shoes, it's not just about them not having shoes on that day. It's about a cycle of poverty that exists within their community.

People underestimate the hip-hop audience and the capacity to understand politics when it's part of music.

The way the music comes to you starts to affect how you listen to music. When you're a kid, it's 'Does it rock? Does it make me feel good? Does it make me tap my feet? Does it make me go to sleep?'

In Jamaica, the music is recorded for the sound system, not the iPod. It's about experiencing music together, with other people.

In the '80s, Ronald Reagan inspired me to become politicized, because I grew up in that era when everything I cared about was under attack.

Everybody's opinion is equally valid, and I feel like everybody should have an opportunity to speak out, and everyone should have the courage to speak out.

Not all artists have a responsibility to be socially or politically aware, but they do have a responsibility to make great art. They have to find some truth and put that in their music.

The U.S. has historically been the world's largest contributor to climate change.

I really believe that, as an artist, my opportunity to help to bring about awakening is one that should come from a personal process that someone has, and not from me telling somebody that this is the way it is.

I really encourage people to travel so we can see how the rest of the world views our country. That's really important. Secondly, as artists, activists, and citizens who vote, we have to begin to vote from our heart.

I don't know if it's so grand that I can change the entire world, but I know that I can help one person. So that's the goal.

All my songs are different, but from the overall experience, I want people to sense that they can overcome and move through difficult times and find strength in my music. Maybe it's a song that makes them cry and move through something else.

It never would have happened without the Internet.

It really is a strange time we're living in, when saying 'Don't kill people' is considered a radical point of view.

It's a really personal thing for me to write a song.

I try to use the attention that I get to help and to serve, and that's really what I'd see as my work - to serve my community, serve the planet, serve my family. And I think a celebrity is someone who draws the attention on themselves, and then it kind of stops there.

The more places I go to, the more I realize I understand so little about the world.

Collectively, we activists are essential to advancing U.S. policy to help empower marginalized people to lift themselves and their communities out of poverty for good.

I'd play music on the street, especially in developing nations where a lot of kids couldn't wear shoes. In order to relate with kids that would be following me barefoot, I would take off my shoes, and they would all laugh at me because I couldn't go three steps without wincing.

Don't let mistakes be so monumental, don't let your love be so confidential, don't let your mind be so darn judgemental, and please let your heart be more influential. Be thankful for all that the spirit provides and be thankful for all that you see without eyes.

Don't settle for something that's not great. Don't feel like having a relationship that is not serving your needs is more important than having a relationship with yourself.

When many little people in many little places do many little things, then the whole world changes.

I believe that through positive thoughts, speech, action and attitudes, we change things for the better.

The main thing is to be myself. What I mean by that is, to be honest when called upon to express your feelings. The other thing is - maybe this should come first - to be a good listener. To close your mouth and to listen, and to be able to echo back what your partner says to you.

Be as radiant as the sun, as healing as the rain, as generous as a tree.

I always know when a song is good or close to finished. When I sing it, it makes me feel the emotion. My tears will start flowing or I'll start laughing. I'll start feeling whatever intensity or emotion was the seed of that song.

A lot of times we look at the whole world and think, 'it's so daunting, how can we change the whole world?' and you don't need to do that, what you need to do is change your world a little bit, and see if you can, through example, inspire others to do the same thing.

Music gets us in touch with our emotions in a way that's more intimate than any other art form.

I think of love as an action. Finding something that's outside of yourself, to serve someone else's soul, helping to ignite someone else's spirit, to bring about ease of heart and joy, serenity in somebody else.

My yoga practice, I do it because when I get on my mat, I know I'm going to be transformed. I know that whatever stresses are in my life or whatever worries I have or whatever monkey mind is happening for me, when I get off the mat, I'm going to be transformed.

I have a passion to make a difference in the world. And that difference can be just making the fans at my show leave with a smile on their faces and feeling uplifted.

I want to promote positivity.

I've never really been into flags of any kind, cause flags can bring people together, but they always bring people together against other people, and I don't really consider myself to be a patriot in the sense that I say, 'okay, this is my nation,' I consider myself to be a child of this whole planet.

If the first casualty of war is innocence, then perhaps with each bullet fired, bomb detonated, leader overthrown, wall built, economy destroyed and family member killed, we are not creating goodwill and harmony, but rather another child who believes violence is the only means to bring about change in the world.

There's sometimes when I feel really balanced, and there's other times when I feel like I'm trying to keep juggling too many balls in the air, and I feel like I'm on the edge of dropping all of them and having them all land on my head, you know? Scheduling is a big part of it, and the other is just remaining flexible and keeping a sense of humor about things.

It was hard for me, as a father, to imagine going through what my birth mom went through, to raise a child inside of her for nine months, and then have to say goodbye. And so it's hard for me to understand that pain and that process.

I don't know if music can change the world overnight but I know that music can help someone make it through a difficult night.

Every single soul is a poem.

Life is too short to make just one decision, music is too loud for just one station, love is too big for just one nation, and God is too big for just one religion!

Sometimes, I feel like I can do anything, and, sometimes, I'm so alive, sometimes, I feel like I could zoom across the sky and, sometimes, I wanna cry.

God is too big for just one religion.

We only have X amount of days and time on this planet - how am I going to spend that time? The way that I want to spend it is caring about the people that I love the most, and fighting to make the world a more livable place for everybody.

The hardest part about what I do, the most vulnerable place is my relationship with my family and Sara, my amazing partner, because I'm leaving a lot. And as a touring artist, I'm constantly coming and going, but also when I'm at home, my studio's at home. I'm leaving to go into a music world in my head.

The most difficult part for me is feeling connected to the people that I love but always being on the go to different places.

Be who you are, nothing more... nothing less.

It's never too late to start the day over.

I believe that in order to tackle the big issues of the world today, like environmental issues, we need everybody's involvement. We need the resources of the corporate world. We need the cooperation of governments. We need the wisdom of indigenous people.

Don't fear the nighttime, cause the monsters know that you're divine. Don't fear the sunshine, cause everything's better in the summertime

It doesnt matter if youre black, white, gay, straight, come from different countries, different language... every single person is significant and is meaningful.

If you love the planet or the neighborhood - you're finding ways to satisfy the soul of the planet or satisfy the soul of the neighborhood.