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.

There's nothing more that we love than having a close, personal, open relationship, and I believe that's what God wants.

I've always had to deal with being biracial, even in music. When I came on the scene, I'd go to these record labels, and they'd say things like, "Lenny Kravitz. That's a weird name." I'm brown-skinned and I've got these dreadlocks and I've got this Jewish last name.

I really didn't know a lot of rock 'n' roll until I moved to L.A. Before that, when I was in New York, I grew up listening mostly to R&B and soul and jazz.

I was always talking about peace and love, even when I was a kid. That's how I grew up in my family.

I come in with this rock 'n' roll-oriented music, and it's not black enough . . . I've always had to deal with this black-white thing.

At 10 o'clock in the morning I'd go right in the studio. It feels good to be there in the morning before the day starts to mess with you - I don't mean in a negative way, but before I'd speak to a lot of people or get into anything, I'd go in there and just see what I felt. A lot happens in the morning for me in the studio.

It doesn't take a lot to get me motivated. I'm a studio rat. When I was in high school and I would walk into a recording studio, it felt like this magical place, this temple, this womb that I could escape into.

I fell in love with Paris the first time I went.

I just feel so good; it feels like a very creative time for me. As far as my mind, spirit, and body, I've never felt better.

The most important thing for me is the moment, going from one thing to the next and hitting all the different levels and different points that make the whole what it is.

At first people thought I was really arrogant and a snob about music because I'm so intense about my production and sound, and because they knew I didn't like new music so much.

One musician listens to another musician, and you get inspired and then you do your thing, but it's yours.

Beyond [Barack Obama] having made history as the first African-American president, I hope that he gets re-elected for what he does while in office, not for his skin color. I certainly believe he has the capacity.

Me being in my grandmother's yard in Brooklyn. I must have been about 3. I had this red balloon. I let go of it, and it went up into the sky and just kept going and going. I completely flipped out, because I didn't understand why.

I'm just as white as I am black, and I'm just as Russian Jew as I am West Indian.

I used to do plays and some television commercials when I was younger. I guess my mom's being an actress got me interested in that, but music definitely took its place.

I started out making furniture because I couldn't find certain things, and then I really got into it.

I basically camped out for a year and a half in an Airstream trailer on the beach out in front of the studio. I had no idea what I was gonna do, what kind of album I was gonna make - all I knew was that I wanted to sit there and just take in whatever came.

My mother's side of the family is from the Bahamas, and I spent time there on and off when I was growing up. It's the place where I feel at peace.

When it comes to acting, it's about creating a character and bringing forth a director's vision. It's a weird feeling, because with acting, it's just not about me. I love being in that position, because with the music, it's always about me.

Music, for me, is completely self-indulgent. I write it, I play the instruments, I arrange it, I produce it. It's all about me - as it should be.

One day we're going to watch people fight to the death, like Roman times. Instead of being in a coliseum, we're going to watch it on TV.

I'm sure at one point I will do some acting again, but it would have to be the right thing. I'm not going to do it just because people are offering it to me. Not for those box-office, bullshit, money, noncreative people. But I'll do it when it's right to do it.

I'm just looking for interesting roles and giving acting the respect it deserves.

I think kids in Europe have developed a deeper knowledge of music and of black music in particular. You go to Europe, and these kids know about all this obscure funk and soul that kids over here wouldn't know. I think it's getting better in the States, though, with the age of the Internet.

If you go to Japan, they're still buying vinyl, and they want the education. They know who's playing on what tracks from the '60s and the '70s - who the guitar player is, who the drummer is, who the producer was, what studio it was recorded in. That's how I grew up listening to music. We bought albums. We read the liner notes. It was important to know the whole history behind it.

You can start something, do it, and believe that that's what you're doing, but then the inspiration comes and it's like, "Nope, this is what it is."