“I ain’t never preyed on the weak. I ain’t never gone and picked on a guy that I knew I could beat up, even as a kid. People wanna make me seem like I’m [that] type of guy.”

There’s no difference in dealing with the music business with the majors than any other competition. The music business is way more cutthroat than any other business.

I don’t care about how many times somebody recognizes my face.

In prison, you get the chance to see who really loves you.

Basically, people are never happy enough because they want more money.

As far as anybody in the rap game ever tryin to assassinate my character, thats impossible. You talkin about a man who has always walked the walk and talked the talk.

If you grow up in the suburbs, you hear of people dying of old age, car wrecks, cancer. In the city, it’s always people dying of violence or stray bullets.

If you wanna cross somebody, then do that. Don’t act like it wasn’t you.

I think the biggest misconception about me probably is … I don’t prey on the weak. I ain’t a bully, but I ain’t no saint, either.

I am in the penitentiary. The only thing that I do is my time.

The music business would be much better, for the youth and the kids, if they start hiring employees that understand the kids.

I’m gonna make sure everybody get their justice. This the year for business, this the year for my book, this the year for the movie and this the year for getting even. I’m on my way.

Prison makes you a better judge of character. You pick up on people much faster.

You got good and bad people everywhere.

I’m passionate about everything, like my family and friends. Anybody I am talkin’ to is gonna be bona fide real. There is no substitution for happiness. Period.

For thugs from the ghetto, violence is a way of life – it’s what helps you survive.

I ain’t no gangster. I’m a grown man trying to run a business.

We don’t, in a sensible world, want to hand on an increasingly dysfunctional world to our grandchildren.

My dream is to put together a performance of the evolution of black music with Cirque du Soleil . I would also like to do street opera and children’s books. But even as I work toward these things, I want to simplify my life.

When a child is given to his parents, a crown is made for that child in Heaven, and woe to the parents who raise a child without consciousness of that eternal crown!

Don’t be afraid mama, the line between your baby and his is very thin, one might even say it doesn’t exist.

Never, even as a child, would I bend to a rule.

When I take my kid to school, all the parents stop and stare.

I don’t know what drives me to succeed. I know I want to always do the best I can. I never was like that as a kid.

The ultimate test of any civilization is how we treat the most vulnerable… what we do to our children. Our world has lost its direction.