“An older guy, he’s going to show you things that a young man can’t show you. He’s going to show you how to stay alive. He’s going to show you how to turn corners where your young friends will show you how to turn right into that wall, you know what I’m saying?”

In the black culture, certain kids are given nicknames that they roll with forever; the nicknames outweigh their real names. I’m one of those scenarios.

You got to be who you are when you are.

My younger son, Cordell, aka Lil Snoop, loves me like a fan loves Snoop Dogg. He’s inspired by making me happy. My older son, Corde, aka Spank, does everything I say, with effort and determination – but he does it for himself. He gets his thrill out of seeing his own results on the football field.

Everybody wants to be a winner. Winning for you is everything, right? Wrong, winning is the only thing!

The more information you have, the better you will be.

Sometimes a loss is the best thing that can happen. It teaches you what you should have done next time.

The message is always going to get through. Me being able to speak is a message in itself.

My mind on my money, my money on my mind.

There’ll be ups and downs, smiles and frowns.

My mama couldn’t give me what I wanted. I had all right clothes, but the people I was with had better clothes. I felt that I had to have better clothes.

Sometimes, if you’re lucky, someone comes into your life who’ll take up a place in your heart that no one else can fill, someone who’s tighter than a twin, more with you than your own shadow, who gets deeper under your skin than your own blood and bones.

I’m taking my skills to different people’s homes that have stoves for it.

Anytime you’re with somebody, you become a reflection of that person. I believe the first five years of our relationship was me grooming her, getting her tough and getting her ready for all of this and how to deal with it. The last was just her being a strong Black woman who has her man’s back.

I’m here to impress only one man. He don’t live here with us. He’s on top. So that’s all I’m concerned about. My work is not for the public or for man to view or make judgment on me, I work for one person.

You don’t know where you goin unless you know where you come from.

Like Ice Cube asks, “Why are more niggers in the pen than in college?” It’s easier to go to the pen than it is to go to college.

Jesus does not offer to make bad people good but to make dead people alive.

There is only one pleasure-that of being alive. All the rest is misery.

The only joy in the world is to begin. It is good to be alive because living is beginning, always, every moment.

In one day, I have times where I’m feeling great, I feel like I love my life, and then 2:30 rolls around and I’m the angriest man alive. My wife sees it.

I am grateful for being alive today. It is my joy and pleasure to live another wonderful day.

Since I was shot, everything is such a dream to me. Like I don’t know whether I’m alive or whether I died. I wasn’t afraid before. And having been dead once, I shouldn’t feel fear. But I am afraid. I don’t understand why.

Suddenly you’re ripped into being alive. And life is pain, and life is suffering, and life is horror, but my god you’re alive and its spectacular.

My Rainforests Project has three main elements. Firstly, to determine how much funding the rainforest countries need to re-orientate their economies so that the trees are worth more alive than dead.