Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" One time, someone came up to me and said, 'I know so-and-so. They're a professor at Harvard. They're a big fan of your work.' But that doesn't impress me more than any other people feeling that way. "

Related Quotes:

" A record is a commodity, but so is a hamburger. Just because I work at McDonald's doesn't mean I reap the benefits of that commodity. That's the reality with most artists in the record industry: They're getting paid a subsistence wage so they can keep producing a commodity for the record label. "

Boots Riley

McDonald

Reality

Just Because

" There's a very thin line between rock and funk. Funk is like a dirtier blues, and so is rock. They're close cousins. "

" I was in an organization called Progressive Labor Party and International Committee Against Racism. And I was - I started out helping to organize a farm workers' union in Central California. "

" I grew up around politics. I organized my first campaign when I was 14, a walk-out in my high school to protest the year-round school schedule. "

" I was born in Chicago. I moved to Detroit until I was six and moved to Oakland at that point. And then we had a couple years in Stockton and Pasadena. And by the time I was 13, I was back in Oakland. "

" We're told, 'If you want to change the world, vote.' And really, if you want to change the world, there's a lot more things that you can do. "

" I've gotten stopped for reckless eyeballing, for staring too hard. These officers think they're Tarzan and this is a jungle, that all the animals need to be tamed. "

" Any collective action is made up of individuals who one day decided not to sit and watch anymore. "

Boots Riley

Action

Day

" Many people feel that unions aren't militant enough for them and don't do anything. "

" The truth is, every movie is a message movie. It's just that most movies have messages that are in lock step with the status quo. "

" You can't get much done by yourself. Speaking as someone who made a movie - and it took hundreds of people to make it happen - I can say that. "

" With a movie, you have the power of putting out an idea about the world and for people to take it seriously. "

" People want something that's relevant to their lives. They want something that means something to them, and they want something where it seems like people have thought about what they're saying. "

" This idea of 'cool capitalism' is still capitalism. It doesn't matter if Elon Musk quotes Nas. "

" I used to be mad, at first, that I couldn't sound like Ice Cube. And I think that was probably one of the best things for me. "

Boots Riley

Mad

" In Chile, they had penas, where the community would come together to sing and plan how they were going to overthrow the government. There's a real hopefulness in that community style of organizing. "

" The point is, is that when you elect a politician, it has nothing to do with their personality. Politicians perform a function, a role in government. And the role of city government is not one that serves the people, unless the people make them do what the people want. "

" I want to fight the McCarthyist state that's developing in this country so my kids won't live in a world where people are afraid to speak out. "

" The Coup does not support the American flag. "

" People want things that address their everyday reality, and that goes for stuff that isn't political - with singer-songwriter music, people want things that touch them. "

" I don't need to be validated by academia, because that presupposes that academia is a pure endeavor and not guided by market forces, which is not the case. "

" The Occupy Wall Street movement, in general, by putting this idea out there that the one percent is leeching off the 99 percent, is making a new discussion, making people figure out how to withhold their labor and come and put their issues on the table with the ruling class all over the country and all over the world. "

" I think voting is the lowest form of political action that you can do. A lot of times, it keeps people from doing stronger things. "

" I think I'm a little superstitious. "