Lenny Kravitz

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

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?

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.

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'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.

I don't play the tuba.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

The image is an image.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

You're never promised your next breath.

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.

I am trying to get closer to God.

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

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

It's very important to vote. People died for this right.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

It's like a dream to come to Spain and stay for a couple of years and get somebody to teach me Spanish music.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Keeping grounded and keeping focused and keeping calm and thankful that comes from God.

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

I've always been into films. I've been offered lots of films but they've always been these very stereotypical roles. They wanted me to play some gangster or street guy, or pimp, drug addict.

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

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

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'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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.