Lyor Quotes & Sayings

I used to have a gym in the house. I thought that was a fantastic luxury. — Lyor Cohen

Don't scorn your life just because it's not dramatic, or it's impoverished, or it looks dull, or it's workaday. Don't scorn it. It is where poetry is taking place if you've got the sensitivity to see it, if your eyes are open.
Philip Levine, describing what he learned from William Carlos Williams, via NPR — Philip Levine

Going to radio with a rap record prior to going to the consumer is like having no foreplay with your girlfriend. — Lyor Cohen

They do the same thing [with cigarette] that they do in the kind of action picture where you know 200 people are killed and then there's no pain. — Joe Eszterhas

Content that's generated out of America, whether it be film or music, has, in my opinion, much greater impact in sustaining our credibility and our place as a cultural capital. This is our great export. — Lyor Cohen

'Butterfly Mosque' came out of the emails I wrote to family and friends back home after moving to Egypt. — G. Willow Wilson

I come from a working class community in eastern Scotland, and I've always been a populist, though not a patronising populist. — Brian Cox

I like moments of staleness and mildew, simply because it creates the lane for change. — Lyor Cohen

Writing is sacred, other activities are profane, and I don't want them to corrupt my writing. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

My week is full-tilt boogie. I wake up every morning, and the singular thought in my head is that maybe today is the day that I'm going to find an artist who is so amazing, an artist who will change pop culture. I'm in hot pursuit, always. — Lyor Cohen

The primary part of the weekend is centered around my children, and I have to be flexible. To call an audible is to be liquid enough to understand that at any given time you have to be a chauffeur or a chaperone, especially for my 12-year-old and whatever her plans are. — Lyor Cohen

Lyor Cohen, who I consider my mentor, once told me something that he was told by a rabbi about the eight degrees of giving in Judaism. The seventh degree is giving anonymously, so you don't know who you're giving to, and the person on the receiving end doesn't know who gave. The value of that is that the person receiving doesn't have to feel some kind of obligation to the giver and the person giving isn't doing it with an ulterior motive. It's a way of putting the giver and receiver on the same level. It's a tough ideal to reach out for, but it does take away some of the patronizing and showboating that can go on with philanthropy in a capitalist system. The highest level of giving, the eight, is giving in a way that makes the receiver self-sufficient. — Jay-Z

Wishful thinking is one thing, and reality another. — Jalal Talabani

Worry and improper thinking are luxuries as dangerous as drink. — Evangeline Walton

Now that I am awake I shall reveal my true form.. to the world!!" Hahahaha! Hey You Morons! I'm Just Kidding! -Yusuke YuYu Hakusho — Yoshihiro Togashi

Hope is the anchor for the heart. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Saddam Hussein was a brutal tyrant. I am glad he is now on trial for crimes against humanity. But, opposition to a dictator is not the measure I use when deciding whether to send our men and women in uniform off to war and possible death. — Peter DeFazio

Everything gets thrown off depending on whether the Packers are playing. I grew up in L.A., and we had a terrible quarterback, Roman Gabriel. When I was 11 years old, I fired him, I fired the Rams, and I picked a quarterback I aspired to be. That was Bart Starr. That's how long I've been a Packers fan. — Lyor Cohen

Rap now is multi-generational, which has its own issues. My son is a big Cudi fan, but he does not like talking to me about Kid Cudi. — Lyor Cohen

I think it would be bad for culture and the art if artists and people who develop the apparatus to support those artists don't get paid. — Lyor Cohen