Best quotes by Erykah Badu

When I get ready to do an album, that means I have something to say for the sake of words, and I listen back to all of the things I've been creating and pull things from out of the air to go with them. It's almost like I start creating the album before I even think about creating it.

What I work hard at doing is staying on a path of being kind and showing and proving that I'm a good person to society. That's hard. The talent, that's a gift. I just came here like that.

Whereas I want everything to be peaceful during a birth, I take the total opposite approach when I'm helping someone come to terms with leaving this place - I play Richard Pryor records.

They usually have a piano in every nursing home, and I always wanted to perform for whoever would listen when I learned something. I grew to understand very early that a lot of these people who are in nursing homes are elderly and don't have a lot of things that give them joy from day to day.

What opens my heart is when my son wakes me up in the morning, nudging me and saying, 'Mommy, mommy!'

I'm kind of a recluse when it comes to going outside.

My truth is relevant and my songs are relevant, but I have to recalibrate myself and speed up my vibrations so that I can communicate with the voice of this generation.

I love to leave the interpretation of my music up to the listener. It's fun to see what they'll say it is

There are millions and billions of atoms of memory of all kinds of musical themes in me.

I've been a vegetarian since I was 19.

Peace and Blessings manifest with every lesson learned. If your knowledge were your wealth then it would be well earned.

Be you. Make sure you're saying something when you're saying something. It's important to sound like you, to feel like you, to be like you. Be you.

I'm only in competition with my last level.

Following your heart also means eliminating the things that no longer evolve you.

The light always shows on the outside if you are striving to be good on the inside.

I'm a recovering undercover over-lover.

I live in a queendom, ruled by a womb-iverse.

I think people who vibrate at the same frequency, vibrate toward each other. They call it - in science - sympathetic vibrations.

I create my own calm and I keep my balance, because I know that it's not really me, by myself... The Creator always gives me the energy.

If you invite negativity in, you have to feed it and hang out with it. Best not to invite it in.

I know that I want to concentrate more on my inside-pretty than my outside-pretty, because thats gonna go away. But if your inside is beautiful, it never wears away. The light always shows on the outside if you are striving to be good inside.

They play it safe, are quick to assassinate what they do not understand. They move in packs, ingesting more and more fear with every act of hate on one another.

I strongly believe that the more positive my vibration is, the clearer my message will be. I keep my negative thoughts from infiltrating my pathway and my dreams. Other people's thoughts are none of my business.

Better think while it's still legal.

Don't let anybody infiltrate your dream

My hair is an aesthetic choice… At the same time, how you wear your hair is a political statement as well.

Time to eliminate things that no longer evolve me.

That's the moment I learned that the more you believe in yourself, the stronger the vibration touches someone else, and things begin to happen the way you dreamed that they would.

We as Black people have to tell our own stories. We have to document our history. When we allow someone else to document our history the history becomes twisted and we get written out. We get our noses blown off.

I was born to make mistakes, I ain't scared to take the weight.

So the most natural thing to me is to stay as pure to or real to or close to who I am as possible.

And I figured out that the reason I couldn't get through the day as well as I can now is because I had too many things on my mind, on my plate, you know, for one person to have. So I started to eliminate some of the things that were too heavy to carry and unnecessary.

Personally, I don't choose any particular religion or symbol or group of words or teachings to define me. That's between me and the most high. You know, my higher self. The Creator.

Vegan food is soul food in its truest form. Soul food means to feed the soul. And, to me, your soul is your intent. If your intent is pure, you are pure.

Society has a problem with female nudity when it is not . . . ”—Badu pauses to get her words together; she wants this point to be very clear—“. . . when it is not packaged for the consumption of male entertainment. Then it becomes confusing.

You don't have to believe everything you think.

I'm a complete human being. I'm very emotional and loving. I feel, I hurt, I give, I take, and also I think. I analyze. I'm a sociologist, anthropologist.

I think a lot of people have lost respect for the individual, you know, the individual, the person who doesn't conform.

I grew up with all mothers, all women. I come from a long line of matriarchs, very strong women.

It just works better for me to discriminate between which thoughts are mine and which come from elsewhere, before I even talk about them or express them - it helps to keep me focused on my path.

In the morning, instead of saying to yourself, ‘I got to wake up’ say ‘I get to wake up!’

The Man That Knowz Something Knowz That He Knowz Nothing At All.

Now keep in mind that I'm an artist and I'm sensitive about my sh*t

I encourage breaking free of self inflicted holding pens. I encourage the use of intelligence in every decision. I encourage creating.

I view my hair and clothes as functional art.

The wise healer endures the pain. Cry. Tears bring joy.

I'm more like an oven than a microwave.

I have advice for people - period - who are in unhealthy relationships: Follow your heart. It will get you to where you need to be. Sometimes it's hard, sometimes it's easy, the places that your heart takes you. But continue to follow it. Where the train leads you - you'll get there.

I'm not satisfied with the explanations I get from tv or from school.

Honey isn't really that good for you.

I don't feel like I need to preach to the world or nothing like that. I just feel like I share what I say, and if listeners get it, they get it. And I never underestimate the audience's ability to feel me.

We lock ourselves into our own philosophies, our own religions, our own walks of life, and if we fail, we condemn ourselves and then we get sick.

A lot of people have dementia, which is great, because then they don't recognize me.

I just keep going. When the water's too still, I start splashing around and things jump out of the water.

What does music mean to me? I don't think I would really be much without it, without it coming through me. It's my means of communication, my means of growth, my means of transportation from one point in my life to another.

If we were made in his image then call us by our names. Most intellects do not believe in god but they fear us just the same

Well, if you look at all of the cultures in America, this is a great opportunity for us to really get acquainted with the rest of the world. America is the only place you can do that, but we don't have sense enough to take advantage of that.

I'm pretty mutable as a human being, period - if you put me on Pluto, I can figure it out.

I knew it would happen. I knew I'd be No. 1. I'm a new artist; I don't know the rules. Nobody told me it wouldn't happen

I'm a woman who has gone through many heartaches, enough to dedicate my whole life to trying to figure them out.

I don't sing melodically. Rhyme pattern is how I sing. I also write like a lyricist or an MC because that's what I was before I was a singer. I just took those elements and put them into music.

I think what makes people think that is because of things people write. It really doesn't have anything to do with the artist.

If you make a decision, a pact with someone, your friend, you should say, 'I'm gonna do this,' and you should stick to it.

We're all friends, inside the music and outside the music. I mean, we don't sound anything alike, we don't approach our music anything alike, but we come from the same genuine place. We want our music to be real and we don't want to compromise our art.