“Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real.”

“A coward dies a thousand deaths. A soldier dies but once.”

“During your life, never stop dreaming. No one can take away your dreams.” -

“There’s gonna be some stuff you gonna see thats gonna make it hard to smile in the future, but through whatever you see, through all the rain and the pain you gotta keep your sense of humor. You gotta be able to smile through all this bullshit…remember that.”

“I don’t see myself being special; I just see myself having more responsibilities than the next man. People look to me to do things for them, to have answers.”

“It’s the game of life. Do I win or do I lose? One day they’re gonna shut the game down. I gotta have as much fun and go around the board as many times as I can before it’s my turn to leave.”

“I think I’m a natural-born leader. I know how to bow down to authority if it’s authority that I respect.”

“For every dark night, there’s a brighter day.”

“I know it seems hard sometimes but remember one thing. Through every dark night, theres a bright day after that. So no matter how hard it get, stick your chest out, keep ya head up and handle it.”

“It’s a struggle for every young Black man. You know how it is, only God can judge us.”

“I just don’t know how to deal with so many people giving me that much affection. I never had that in my life.”

“All I’m trying to do is survive and make good out of the dirty, nasty, unbelievable lifestyle that they gave me.”

“Life’s a wheel of fortune and it’s my chance to spin it.”

“When you do rap albums, you got to train yourself. You got to constantly be in character.”

“Somebody help me, tell me where to go from here cause even thugs cry, but do the Lord care?”

“We wouldn’t ask why a rose that grew from the concrete for having damaged petals; in turn, we would all celebrate its tenacity, we would all love its will to reach the sun. Well, we are the roses, this is the concrete and these are my damaged petals. Don’t ask me why, thank God, and ask me how.”

“Everybody’s at war with different things. I’m at war with my own heart sometimes.”

“I would rather have been shot straight-up in cold blood-but to be set up? By people who you trusted? That’s bad.”

“Let the Lord judge the criminals.”

“The only thing that comes to a sleeping man is dreams.”

“What I learned in jail is that I can’t change. I can’t live a different lifestyle – this is it. This is the life that they gave and this is the life that I made.”

“I’m a reflection of the community.”

“We all gonna die, we bleed from similar veins.”

“I’d rather die like a man, than live like a coward.”

“I feel like role models today are not meant to be put on a pedestal. But more like angels with broken wings.”

“My mama always used to tell me: ‘if you can’t find somethin’ to live for, you best find somethin’ to die for.’”

“If God wanted me to be quiet he would’ve never showed me what he does.”

“I’ll probably be punished for hard living.”

“I am society’s child. This is how they made me and now I’m sayin’ what’s on my mind and they don’t want that. This is what you made me, America.”

“Though things change, the future’s still inside of me.”

“I don’t have no fear of death. My only fear is coming back reincarnated.”

“I’m 23 years old. I might just be my mother’s child, but in all reality, I’m everybody’s child. Nobody raised me; I was raised in this society.”

“There’s nobody in the business strong enough to scare me.”

“In my mind I’m a blind man doin’ time.”

“With all my fans I got a family again.”

“I believe that everything that you do bad comes back to you. So everything that I do that’s bad, I’m going to suffer from it. But in my mind, I believe what I’m doing is right. So I feel like I’m going to heaven.”

“Of course I’m going to say “I’m a thug,” that’s because I came from the gutter and I’m still here!”

“I’ve been shot five times but I’m still breathing, living proof there a God if you need a reason.”

“I don’t want to be a role model. I just want to be someone who says, this is who I am, this is what I do, I say what’s on my mind.”

“If we really are saying that rap is an art form, then we got to be more responsible for our lyrics. If you see everybody dying because of what you are saying, it don’t matter that you didn’t make them die. It just matters that you didn’t save them.”

“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside while still alive. Never surrender.”

“I’m not sayin’ I’m gonna rule the world, or that I’m gonna change the world, but I guarantee that I will spark the brain that will change the world.”

“That which does not kill me can only make me stronger. I don’t see why everybody feel as though that they gotta tell me how to live my life.”

“Forgive but don’t forget, girl keep your head up. And when he tells you you ain’t nothing, don’t believe him. And if he can’t learn to love you, you should leave him.”

“Can’t close my eyes cause all I see is terror. I hate the man in the mirror cause his reflection makes the pain turn realer.”

“Fear is stronger than love, remember that. Fear is stronger than love. All that love I gave didn’t mean nothing when it came to fear.”

“One day I’m gonna bust, blow up on this society. Why did you lie to me? I couldn’t find a trace of equality.”

“Every day, I’m standing outside trying to sing my way in: We are hungry, please let us in We are hungry, please let us in. After about a week that song is gonna change to: We hungry, we needsome food. After two, three weeks, it’s like: Give me the food Or I’m breaking down the door. After a year you’re just like: I’m picking the lock. Coming through the door blasting.”

“I have not brought violence to you. I have not brought ‘thug life’ to America. I didn’t create ‘thug life;’ I diagnosed it.”

“If I was white, I would be like John Wayne. I feel like a tragic hero in a Shakespeare play. Somebody who pulled himself up by his bootstraps, from poverty.”