Janet Jackson Quotes

We were fools and now we were driving to our deaths in a rental car. Janet Jackson was tinkling from the speakers, asking what we had done for her as of late

To cut off the confusion and accept an answer just because it's too scary not to have an answer is a good way to get the wrong answer.

So remember, Sweet Pea, just 'cause someone got a roof, don't make it a home" -Janet (Ma)

To be given permission to be confused -- and remain confused -- for as long as it takes would have been a huge gift.

You can never be happy until you understand why you're doing what you're doing.

FEAR IS THE ONE EMOTION THAT UNLEASHED CAN DESTROY ANYTHING AND ANYONE.

When Muslim radicals and fundamentalists look at the West, they see only the openness that makes us, in their eyes, decadent and promiscuous. They see only the openness that has produced Britney Spears and Janet Jackson. They do not see, and do not want to see, the openness - the freedom of thought and inquiry - that has made us powerful, the openness that has produced Bill Gates and Sally Ride. They deliberately define it all as decadence. Because if openness, women's empowerment, and freedom of thought and inquiry are the real sources of the West's economic strength, then the Arab-Muslim world would have to change. And the fundamentalists and extremists do not want to change.

In complete darkness, we are all the same. It is only our knowledge and wisdom that separates us. Don't let your eyes deceive you.

Light skin, dark skin, my Asian persuasion/ I got them all that’s why these girls out here hatin’” —JANET JACKSON

Isn’t there anyone else you can bug? I’m probably not the best person for the job.” The last football game I’d watched had been the Super Bowl where Janet Jackson’s nipple had made its television debut, and I could honestly have told you more about her areola than the game. I literally knew zilch about sports, especially football. “Please,

Pharrell Williams: '[Tommy Lee] is a great drummer with a lot of style. He keeps his chops up in terms of technique and his style in drumming; his chops are very sharp. Also, 'Pour Some sugar on Me' can be played in the middle of any hip-hop party. I love that.' Man, that's awesome that Pharrell paid respect. I've always loved his shit, ever since 'When Doves Cry'. Oh, wait, my bad. Pharrell is that producer guy from Atlanta who dates Janet Jackson. The little guy, right? Discovered Kris Kross. Nice. Thanks, bro.

You know what happens on live TV? Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl Boob happens on live TV. Adele Dazeem happens on live TV. President Al Gore happens on live TV

New Rule: America must stop bragging it's the greatest country on earth, and start acting like it. I know this is uncomfortable for the "faith over facts" crowd, but the greatness of a country can, to a large degree, be measured. Here are some numbers. Infant mortality rate: America ranks forty-eighth in the world. Overall health: seventy-second. Freedom of the press: forty-fourth. Literacy: fifty-fifth. Do you realize there are twelve-year old kids in this country who can't spell the name of the teacher they're having sex with? America has done many great things. Making the New World democratic. The Marshall Plan. Curing polio. Beating Hitler. The deep-fried Twinkie. But what have we done for us lately? We're not the freest country. That would be Holland, where you can smoke hash in church and Janet Jackson's nipple is on their flag. And sadly, we're no longer a country that can get things done. Not big things. Like building a tunnel under Boston, or running a war with competence. We had six years to fix the voting machines; couldn't get that done. The FBI is just now getting e-mail. Prop 87 out here in California is about lessening our dependence on oil by using alternative fuels, and Bill Clinton comes on at the end of the ad and says, "If Brazil can do it, America can, too!" Since when did America have to buck itself up by saying we could catch up to Brazil? We invented the airplane and the lightbulb, they invented the bikini wax, and now they're ahead? In most of the industrialized world, nearly everyone has health care and hardly anyone doubts evolution--and yes, having to live amid so many superstitious dimwits is also something that affects quality of life. It's why America isn't gonna be the country that gets the inevitable patents in stem cell cures, because Jesus thinks it's too close to cloning. Oh, and did I mention we owe China a trillion dollars? We owe everybody money. America is a debtor nation to Mexico. We're not a bridge to the twenty-first century, we're on a bus to Atlantic City with a roll of quarters. And this is why it bugs me that so many people talk like it's 1955 and we're still number one in everything. We're not, and I take no glee in saying that, because I love my country, and I wish we were, but when you're number fifty-five in this category, and ninety-two in that one, you look a little silly waving the big foam "number one" finger. As long as we believe being "the greatest country in the world" is a birthright, we'll keep coasting on the achievements of earlier generations, and we'll keep losing the moral high ground. Because we may not be the biggest, or the healthiest, or the best educated, but we always did have one thing no other place did: We knew soccer was bullshit. And also we had the Bill of Rights. A great nation doesn't torture people or make them disappear without a trial. Bush keeps saying the terrorist "hate us for our freedom,"" and he's working damn hard to see that pretty soon that won't be a problem.

In church, instead of singing (without really believing) the words of the hymn “Trust and Obey,” perhaps we should collectively sing to God the Janet Jackson hit, “What Have You Done for Me Lately?

It might be instructive to try seeing things from the perspective of, say, a God-fearing hard-working rural-Midwestern military vet. It's not that hard. Imaging gazing through his eyes at the world of MTV and the content of video games, at the gross sexualization of children's fashions, at Janet Jackson flashing her aureole on what's supposed to be a holy day. Imagine you're him having to explain to your youngest what oral sex is and what it's got to do with a US president. Ads for penis enlargers and HOT WET SLUTS are popping up out of nowhere on your family's computer. Your kids' school is teaching them WWII and Vietnam in terms of Japanese internment and the horrors of My Lai. Homosexuals are demanding holy matrimony; your doctor's moving away because he can't afford the lawsuit insurance; illegal aliens want driver's licenses; Hollywood elites are bashing America and making millions from it; the president's ridiculed for reading his Bible; priests are diddling kids left and right. Shit, the country's been directly attacked, and people aren't supporting our commander in chief.

No word is absolutely wrong or dirty or insulting. It all depends upon context and intention.

New Rule: Americans must realize what makes NFL football so great: socialism. That's right, the NFL takes money from the rich teams and gives it to the poorer one...just like President Obama wants to do with his secret army of ACORN volunteers. Green Bay, Wisconsin, has a population of one hundred thousand. Yet this sleepy little town on the banks of the Fuck-if-I-know River has just as much of a chance of making it to the Super Bowl as the New York Jets--who next year need to just shut the hell up and play. Now, me personally, I haven't watched a Super Bowl since 2004, when Janet Jackson's nipple popped out during halftime. and that split-second glimpse of an unrestrained black titty burned by eyes and offended me as a Christian. But I get it--who doesn't love the spectacle of juiced-up millionaires giving one another brain damage on a giant flatscreen TV with a picture so real it feels like Ben Roethlisberger is in your living room, grabbing your sister? It's no surprise that some one hundred million Americans will watch the Super Bowl--that's forty million more than go to church on Christmas--suck on that, Jesus! It's also eighty-five million more than watched the last game of the World Series, and in that is an economic lesson for America. Because football is built on an economic model of fairness and opportunity, and baseball is built on a model where the rich almost always win and the poor usually have no chance. The World Series is like The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. You have to be a rich bitch just to play. The Super Bowl is like Tila Tequila. Anyone can get in. Or to put it another way, football is more like the Democratic philosophy. Democrats don't want to eliminate capitalism or competition, but they'd like it if some kids didn't have to go to a crummy school in a rotten neighborhood while others get to go to a great school and their dad gets them into Harvard. Because when that happens, "achieving the American dream" is easy for some and just a fantasy for others. That's why the NFL literally shares the wealth--TV is their biggest source of revenue, and they put all of it in a big commie pot and split it thirty-two ways. Because they don't want anyone to fall too far behind. That's why the team that wins the Super Bowl picks last in the next draft. Or what the Republicans would call "punishing success." Baseball, on the other hand, is exactly like the Republicans, and I don't just mean it's incredibly boring. I mean their economic theory is every man for himself. The small-market Pittsburgh Steelers go to the Super Bowl more than anybody--but the Pittsburgh Pirates? Levi Johnston has sperm that will not grow and live long enough to see the Pirates in a World Series. Their payroll is $40 million; the Yankees' is $206 million. The Pirates have about as much chance as getting in the playoffs as a poor black teenager from Newark has of becoming the CEO of Halliburton. So you kind of have to laugh--the same angry white males who hate Obama because he's "redistributing wealth" just love football, a sport that succeeds economically because it does just that. To them, the NFL is as American as hot dogs, Chevrolet, apple pie, and a second, giant helping of apple pie.

It's so funny because I haven't set foot in a grocery store in years, you know. And that's so embarrassing...I kept going, 'What's this?' "First of all I had the cart and I was riding down the aisles standing on it. And there's nobody there but us. And we got in the checkout. And I'm seeing this square thing, and I'm like, "What's this you guys?" And Missy just looked at me. And they said, "That's so you can use your credit card." And I said, "You can use your credit cards in grocery stores now?

In my country, we read the patterns in the grounds of Turkish coffee to predict the future. It’s a very ancient practice. Some people call it tasseography.” She shrugged her shoulders. “To me it’s fortune telling.” Mary had been bustling around a one-burner stove a

Or is it the opposite-that the US has moved so far and so fast toward cultural permissiveness that we've reached a kind of apsidal point? It might be instructive to try seeing things from the perspective of, say, a God-fearing hard-working rural-Midwestern military vet. It's not that hard. Imagine gazing through his eyes at the world of MTV and the content of video games, at the gross sexualization of children's fashions, at Janet Jackson flashing her aureole on what's supposed to be a holy day. Imagine you're him having to explain to your youngest what oral sex is and what it's got to do with a US president. Ads for penis enlargers and Hot Wet Sluts are popping up out of nowhere on your family's computer. Your kids' school is teaching them WWII and Vietnam in terms of Japanese internment and the horrors of My Lai. Homosexuals are demanding holy matrimony; your doctor's moving away because he can't afford the lawsuit insurance; illegal aliens want driver's licenses; Hollywood elites are bashing America and making millions from it; the president's ridiculed for reading his Bible; priests are diddling kids left and right. Shit, the country's been directly attacked, and people aren't supporting our commander in chief. Assume for a moment that it's not silly to see things this man's way. What cogent, compelling, relevant message can the center and left offer him? Can we bear to admit that we've actually helped set him up to hear "We 're better than they are" not as twisted and scary but as refreshing and redemptive and true? If so, then now what?

Vanity 6’s most famous song, ‘Nasty Girl’, may be less well-known than Prince’s greatest hits, but it’s among the most influential songs Prince has written. It’s easy to trace a line from Madonna, who in her earliest incarnation could have been a fourth member of the band, on to Janet Jackson, whose 1986 song ‘Nasty’ (produced by two former members of The Time) reverses the gender from ‘nasty girls’ to ‘nasty boys’, to Britney Spears, who claimed that the track ‘Boys’, from her 2001 album Britney, had ‘a kinda Prince feel to it’, but actually lifts directly from ‘Nasty Girl’ (the song is produced by The Neptunes, and its remixed version, ‘Boys (The Co-Ed Remix)’, features vocals from Pharrell Williams, a producer and rapper and diehard Prince fanatic). Britney’s ‘Let’s turn this dance floor into our own little nasty world’, and repeated invocations to ‘get nasty’, are clear Xeroxes of Vanity’s ‘my own little nasty world’ and ‘dance nasty girls’.

I'd been dumped before. In first grade, a doe-eyed beauty named Shauna cut me loose. She never said why, but she did ask to move desks. In sixth grade, I'd been dumped by a sweet little Southern Baptist with gorgeous brown hair. When I asked why, she quoted a series of Janet Jackson lyrics prepared for this purpose. 'What have you done for me lately?' she said, with a snap of her chin, and ran away. I was blindsided, not by a self-reflection of my flaws, but by the stunning realization that Baptists were allowed to listen to Janet Jackson.

But most people are paying attention to Janet Jackson’s halftime nipple peepshow or something similar because it takes the focus away from the real thieves.” “A distraction?” “They create them and at times, pay for them. The media is easily bought or influenced by the same people occupying the same fucking bed, and the world is kind enough to take care of the rest.

Reich would soon back a request from Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide’s white-haired, unnaturally tanned CEO. Mozilo wanted an exemption from the Section 23A rules that prevented Countrywide’s holding company from tapping the discount window through a savings institution it owned. Sheila and the FDIC were justifiably skeptical, as was Janet Yellen at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, in whose district Countrywide’s headquarters were located. Lending indirectly to Countrywide would be risky. It might well already be insolvent and unable to pay us back. The day after the discount rate cut, Don Kohn relayed word that Janet was recommending a swift rejection of Mozilo’s request for a 23A exemption. She believed, Don said, that Mozilo “is in denial about the prospects for his company and it needs to be sold.” Countrywide found its reprieve in the form of a confidence-boosting $2 billion equity investment from Bank of America on August 22—not quite the sale that Janet thought was needed, but the first step toward an eventual acquisition by Bank of America. Countrywide formally withdrew its request for a 23A exemption on Thursday August 30 as I was flying to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to speak at the Kansas City Fed’s annual economic symposium. The theme of the conference, chosen long before, was “Housing, Housing Finance, and Monetary Policy.

RESISTANCE TO CHANGE? “The canal system of this country is being threatened by the spread of a new form of transportation known as ’railroads’ and the federal government must preserve the canals. . . . If canal boats are supplanted by ’railroads,’ serious unemployment will result. Captains, cooks, drivers, hostlers, repairmen, and lock tenders will be left without means of livelihood, not to mention the numerous farmers now employed growing hay for the horses. . . . As you may well know, Mr. President, ’railroad’ carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of 15 miles per hour by ’engines’ which, in addition to endanging life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock and frightening women and children. The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed.” The above communication was from Martin Van Buren, then governor of New York, to President Andrew Jackson on January 21, 1829. In 1832 Van Buren was elected vice president of the United States under Andrew Jackson’s second term. In 1836 Van Buren was elected president of the United States. It is also interesting that the first railroad into Washington, DC, was completed in time to bring visitors from Philadelphia and New York to Van Buren’s inauguration. Sources: Janet E. Lapp, “Ride the Horse in the Direction It’s Going,” American Salesman, October 1998, pp. 26–29; and The World Book Encyclopedia, Volume 20 (Chicago: World Book—Childcraft International, Inc.), 1979, p. 214. 2

The hormones also made me more emotional. I found myself snapping at Chad and Jeff for blasting The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin on TV. I also was more prone to isolation, vegging out in my room, listening to Janet Jackson’s The Velvet Rope on loop while reading heavy heroine novels like Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina, A Room with a View, and The Age of Innocence.

The handsome Prince Nelly, new gay bar royalty, lip-synced along to his power ballad selections with a crooner’s passion, both his fists at his sternum. He announced the next song into a microphone, imparting copious factoids. In general, the music was eighties pop—Dead or Alive, Bananarama, Belinda Carlisle, the Human League—and stuff irresistible after imbibing cheap beer: ‘Fantasy’ by Mariah Carey. ‘9 to 5.’ Crystal Castles. CSS. Janet Jackson’s ‘When I Think of You.’ ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ by Depeche Mode. ‘That’s Not My Name.’ MGMT. ‘D.A.N.C.E.’ ‘Last Dance.’ I recognized the Lovely Jonjo from his appearance on the cover of Butt magazine.

Where Do I Begin,” Shirley Bassey; “Swing Life Away,” Rise Against; “I’ve Got a Crush on You,” Frank Sinatra; “My Best Friend’s Girl,” The Cars; “Mr. Brightside,” The Killers; “What Sarah Said,” Death Cab for Cutie; “The Scientist,” Coldplay; “Everlong,” Foo Fighters; “Wild Horses,” The Sundays; “One Love,” U2; “Criminal,” Fiona Apple; “Bleeding Love,” Leona Lewis; “Again,” Janet Jackson; “I Think That She Knows,” Justin Timberlake; “Let’s Get it On,” Marvin Gaye; “Let’s Stay Together,” Al Green; “Save the Last Dance for Me,” The Drifters.

One by one the Essence Awards honorees were called onto the stage. First went civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, then movie director Spike Lee, followed by comedian Eddie Murphy, and then Dr. Benjamin S. Carson. Ben stood and walked forward to the stage. It was one of the most surreal moments of his life. He wondered how he belonged in the same category as those around him on the stage. It was hard for him to imagine that he, a pediatric neurosurgeon, was being publicly honored along with the most recognizable African American men and women in the country. As he stood onstage, staring out at the crowd, Ben thought about the path his life had taken. Who could have guessed that he, a poor black boy from a single-parent home in Detroit, would end up a brain surgeon? Certainly not those who had considered him the class dummy back in elementary school. Here he was, not just a brain surgeon, but a brain surgeon being honored for the work he had undertaken—experimental surgeries that gave children a chance at life.

Janet Jackson kicked off this curious phenomenon, Madonna continued it, Beyoncé is its apex. Here dancing is intended as a demonstration of the female will, a concrete articulation of its reach and possibilities. The lesson is quite clear. My body obeys me. My dancers obey me. Now you will obey me.

When Erin arrived, she saw an old man stretched out on the floor. He was surrounded by young medical technicians in blue jumpsuits. One of them knelt beside the lifeless form, thumping the man's chest in perfect time to Janet Jackson's 'Rhythm Nation,' which was playing on the club speakers.

JANET JACKSON, artist: I loved watching it. How exciting back then, being a teenager and having something so creative, so fresh, so new. It was about waiting for your favorite video, and not really knowing what hour it would hit, so you’d have to watch all day long.

Now ... this” idea: the phenomenon whereby the reporting of a horrific event—a rape or a five-alarm fire or global warming—is followed immediately by the anchor’s cheerfully exclaiming “Now ... this,” which segues into a story about Janet Jackson’s exposed nipple or a commercial for lite beer, creating a sequencing of information so random, so disparate in scale and value, as to be incoherent, even psychotic.