“The world is yours and everything in it, it’s out there- get on your grind and get it.”

I feel like I’m married to what I do, to the streets. And I feel like when the streets are mad, it’s serious.

I just think a hustler’s ambition is that I never stop. I start off hustling and said I’ll never stop hustling. An ambitious hustler is the one to hustle the hustlers. When I grew up, my heroes were hustlers. Now I’m their hero.

Music is all about leadership and there ain’t really a lot of leaders.

With rap, it’s a funny thing. You can say things, and people can take ’em the way they wanna take ’em.

Anybody that’s got a problem with me is probably envious or wants to be me, and that’s how I’ve always looked at it.

It wasn’t necessary to speak on the recession, you know what I mean, but I just though it made a lot of sense. I was like, “okay, cool,” I’m going to go with this approach for the name of the album [ The Recession].

Every time I’m out and somebody tells me they love what I do, that’s what I do it for. That’s like my vice. That’s like my high. When people understand that this is who I really am, and to be appreciated for your craft .

I’ma continue to make records, continue to make hits, continue to be what I am, legendary.

I never wanted to be a statistic. I never wanted to be that cat who tried and never made it.

Anybody that I ever dealt with knows that I’m a very focused individual, and when it comes to my work and what I do, you might have to play the back burner to that.

You seen my shows; I bring the ‘hood out.

A lot of things come with fame, whether it’s losing friends or losing family.

My fans are my family, because they understand me and I understand them.

Think you figured it out, but you don’t have a clue. Think you on top of the world, but the world on top of you.

People who work every day are kind of scared of things they don’t understand.

You’ve got to be happy with yourself. You can’t sell yourself if you’re out here and you ain’t good. Because you’re giving people messages, and if your message is wrong, then it’s like the blind leading the blind.

I don’t know anyone who’s going to see Grind 22 times in the theater. My mom. Some kid who has short-term memory loss and forgot that he’s seen it.

It’s a lot of people that’s tried to stop my grind, there’s been a lot of hate, but even more love.

I define “grindin'” as just nonstop work! Nonstop work, nonstop progress. Can’t sleep during that grind – I mean, you get a little bit of it, but if you’re progressin’ at every hour, every second, you are grindin’.

Every age cuts and pastes history to suit its own purposes; art always has an ax to grind.

Vast, colossal destiny, which raises man to fame, though it may also grind him to powder!

I don’t want everything to be a destination, where I have to grind and reach, O! how I long for some good to come in my way and let me pick it up.

Most the time, when it rains it starts pouring, but how we grind it makes the weather change for us.

My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts.