I feel weird without lipstick. Even after the first time I wore a really neon pink or a really bright red, I felt really strange without it there. My lips are a main feature, so I feel naked without them.
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 a...
'Quantum of Solace' was a bit of a different circumstance than a lot of my other films because you're stepping into a franchise, and also in that particular film, we're dealing with a script from the writer's strike, which was difficult to handle bec...
I think there has only been one time in my entire career that I've ever gone back to shoot a scene. And it was a scene that, when we were shooting it, we knew that it wasn't working. We knew there was a disagreement between the actor and director. So...
I carry around, like, a little journal with me and just write all the time. Not necessarily, like, actually sitting down and writing lyrics - just freeform writing, whatever's going on in my mind. I write a lot on airplanes, actually, because it's co...
The pretty fellows you speak of, I own entertain me sometimes, but is it impossible to be diverted with what one despises? I can laugh at a puppet show, at the same time I know there is nothing in it worth my attention or regard.
Yes, now I understood for the first time that my soul was not so poor and empty as it had seemed to me, and that it had been only the sun that was lacking to open all its germs, and buds to the light.
With reading, I was very lucky. I had a mother who read to me, not because she had time - she was a busy woman - but she found 10 minutes to come and sit on my bed with a book.
My father wasn't too crazy about me. I loved him anyway. One of the things I regretted for a long time was that he died before he could see that he would be proud of me. I was actually more what he wished for than he thought.
I envy my Jewish friends the ritual of saying kaddish - a ritual that seems perfectly conceived, with its built-in support group and its ceremonious designation of time each day devoted to remembering the lost person.
The most exciting time is when I think of an idea and how I imagine I can make it. It would be wonderful if there was a projector inside my eye that and it could just put the idea on the screen for people to see.
But I've got a lot of ideas, I bought me a ranch in Florida and I still have my farm in Ashland City, Tennessee so I'm gonna spend a little time at each one of those places and you'll probably hear some more songs out of me.
The celebrity aspect is nothing short of ridiculous, and auditioning is brutal and dehumanizing. Every time I see a pretty young girl on the subway reading sides for an audition, my only thought is, 'Man, am I glad I'm not doing that anymore.' I neve...
When my sister was diagnosed with cancer in 1989, her doctor told her that the cancer had probably been in her system for 10 years. By the time cancer's diagnosed, it's usually been around for quite a while.
There's a time and place for the Kindle, and I own one now and have books on it that I don't otherwise have. But I don't find that my hand reaches out for it the way it does for a trade paperback, or (in the middle of the night) for the iPod Touch.
I know that I can sing really loud. It's like having that really big Evinrude engine on the back of your fishing boat. But I've been trying to be more dynamic with my voice, and not just singing on 10 all of the time out of terror.
As for my own views, they've of course evolved over the years. This conception of 'renouncing beliefs' is very odd, as if we're in some kind of religious cult. I 'renounce beliefs' practically every time I think about the topics or find out what some...
For years before I became a father, I would try to spend as much time as I could with my friends who were parents and their kids. And I was really impressed. They all sort of managed to do it, and do it gracefully.
I feel like my competition is everything else that's competing for people's attention, not just other print magazines, newspapers and cable. It's your kid's report card and the games you want to play, all the things that compete for people's time.
I never was the battle rapper. That was never my thing. I always felt like it's enough room for everybody to do their thing. I like bringing new energy, re-inventing the wheel, so to speak, every time I come out.
My house is full of antics, mayhem, foolishness, carrying on, cutting up, shucking and jiving, and I have that whether cameras are there or not. Our youngest just had us up with her shenanigans and hijinks all night. So, it's all the time, even off c...