Jason Mitchell Quotes

You know, we live in a time when if somebody wants to kill you, they're going to kill you, and you can either go in a hole and, you know, pull the roof in over you, or you just continue putting one foot in front of the other and hope that you're doing some good in the world.

I was headed in the wrong direction. I didn't think I'd make it to 21. My Uncle Chuck saved my life. He was a graphic designer, and he gave me my first sketchbook. In the front, he wrote, 'Wear it like your underwear.'

I been around negativity all my life. To do something positive, it's a beautiful thing.

In my stories, I controlled what happened in a way I couldn't in real life. My characters lived through the horror and degradation of the cruelty of others and they not only survived, they thrived. They gave me hope and laughter, and they kept me going in spite of everything else. They were my heroes.

I really struggle with that feeling of helplessness. That's why I really try to get my blogs, and even myself, to point to the positive and look at all the inspiring things that are happening.

It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

You make your first album, you make some money, and you feel like you still have to show face, like 'I still go to the projects.' I'm like, why? Your job is to inspire people from your neighborhood to get out. You grew up there. What makes you think it's so cool?

The people of New Orleans have gotten to rock bottom. And the only way out in my mind is for them to really understand it, and then to really choose to get better.

I think they saw me as something like a deliverer, a way out. My means of expression, my music, was a way in which a lot of people wished they could express themselves and couldn't.

There was a certain point in my life where I had to decide that I was going to take my future and Nicole's and not wallow in what happened to me because when you do that, you just keep repeating what's been happening and at some point you have to make a choice.

The truth is that at age 19, I was a teenage mother living alone with my daughter in a trailer and struggling to keep us afloat on my way to a divorce. And I knew then that I was going to have to work my way up and out of that life if I was going to give my daughter a better life and a better future, and that's what I've done.

Action is the antidote to despair.

I have been drawing all my life.

I am an optimist because I want to change things for the better and I know that blood has to be spilled and disharmony and cruelty are necessary to do that.

Music saved my life. The voice you hear, the soul, the pain, is that of a person who deeply, deeply, deeply appreciates the opportunity they've been given.

Music's always been a huge part of my life, and my first record came out in 1981.

Singing is just another outlet to express what I feel and to show everyone who I really am. I really don't talk about my personal life that much in interviews because that's my life, but with music, the way I write explains who I am.

I don't really think about having had a hard life. It was just my life, and it's all I knew. It made me who I am - all the good and bad - and it's where all of the songs on Here For The Party came from. I've lived them all.

I been in the blues all my life. I'm still delivering 'cause I got a long memory.

Any movie that has that spirit and says things can be changed is worth making.

All breathing, existing, living, sentient creatures should not be slain, nor treated with violence, nor abused, nor tormented, nor driven away

Conflict states just need someone to give them a chance. Nobody wants to be a failure.

If I could have a family and a home one night, and all of it's gone the next, that must mean that life has the capacity to change. And then I thought, 'Whoa! That means that just as change happens to me, I can cause change in my life.'

I came to the realization that I can also satisfy my creative side by giving somebody else a chance. I don't have to be in front of the camera for every project.

It's easy to feel helpless - like you can't fight the tide. But remember: small actions can have a huge impact, and one person like you can inspire others to action.