“I wasn’t available to do the right things for my son. If not for the arts, my child would’ve been lost.”

I have never one day been ashamed of my son. Even when he was not right, that’s ok.

People can like him or not like him individually. But I need for them to know that he was a person of substance, and he was worthy, and he was a good son and a good brother and a good participant in the community.

I’m not a filmmaker. I’m not a music producer by choice.

Nelson Mandela’s contribution to the people of South Africa has been immeasurable and I look forward to helping with his work all over the country.

Revolution is Tupac showing a young artist that he can scribble in a notebook and it’s worth a lot.

I read every agreement of every contract. Anything I put my signature on, I really do read them. And I find things.

For me, revolution is around young people with no skills, college education, and coming from everywhere having an economic impact on an entire system which no one notices.

All we ever wanted was for Tupac to have the opportunity to tell his story.

That’s what people are who have that impact on us. They are ahead of their time. They can’t help it. They get put into a small, frail body, and they are given a light that is much too bright for that cavity.

When I carried Tupac, when I was five months pregnant they put me back in jail, my bail was revoked. When my bail was revoked, I was not allowed to have my own food. I could only have what was there.

Arts can save children, no matter what’s going on in their homes.

We cannot go anywhere with anger that we haven’t already been.

The critics never ever one time fairly criticized my son.

The worst thing that can happen to you is if you don’t take responsibility for what you did wrong.

Whatever else anyone says he was, he may have been. But Tupac really was a great American artist. The passage of time allows us to see things as they really are: We see the poetry; we see the personality; we see different sides.

I know that my son was an honest person and an honest artist, and what he gave from himself through his art was the depth of his humanity.

Today, I painted with blood.

Even if you were to lose it all – you would still be art.

Somehow in all this grief I found joy. Sharing art with you has made me whole again. And again.

Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.

I knew nothing about martial arts. The coach told me I was talented with learning martial arts, and put me in a school. Three years later I got my first championship in China.

When we share art we extend a hand. We hold a mirror. We adjust our focus. We hold each other. We weave a collaborative story. Together.

For work, I wear art; in real life, I wear clothes.

Tenderness can be just as abstract as insanity.