Top 188 Quotes & Sayings by Ice T - Page 3

I wouldn't write about sh*t I don't know. You won't hear me write about politics in Africa and stuff, because I don't know enough about it. And I would never rap about something I can't back up.

There's people out there with nuclear bombs and yet we've got all these politicians trying to make a political platform based on a record. Isn't it ridiculous?

When the President (of the United States) mentions your name in anger, you know the sh*t has hit the fan!

You know, I say in my lyrics, "Every word I write will be analyzed by somebody white." It's just that I know that this sh*t is just not gonna fall on deaf ears.

I write rhymes with addition and algebra, mental geometry.

You know, you'd hide behind a Public Enemy or Ice Cube, or Bruce Springsteen, or U2, because they spoke for you. But now everybody's bloggin'. I heard somebody say, "Blogging is just graffiti with punctuation." Everyone's an authority so there's nobody in power, 'cause everyone thinks they're in power.

Now everybody's bloggin'. I heard somebody say, "Blogging is just graffiti with punctuation." Everyone's an authority so there's nobody in power, 'cause everyone thinks they're in power.

With acting, you have to take it seriously because the other actors are putting in a lot of effort - and if you say, 'I'm just bullshitting here', it's like dissing 'em.

I never know if the person I'm shaking hands with is coming to kill me. That's something you have to live with when you cross the lines.

Half the rhymes you write, you're saying that you're better than the other MC. That's how we keep the craft sharp.

I'm pretty open book, I'm also the kind of person that will say, 'That's none of your business,' too.

The best way to compliment an emcee is to say his lyrics. That's how you say, "Hello."

Redemption means you just make a change in your life and you try to do right, versus what you were doing, which was wrong. So I think a lot of people get hooked on drugs and when they get over that addiction they go out and they try to talk to kids and they try to work in rehab centers.

I'm like a monkey. You don't let go of one branch until you get a hold of the other.

You can't do an impersonation of somebody nobody knows.

I was a full-blown street cat. I was trying to hustle my way. I thought I was going to hustle my way to a mansion or something. I was doing pretty good, but I didn't realize that there was no way to win that game.

Hip-hop is the fountain of youth. You just don't grow up if you were there. My son's 20. I'm on the same channel he's on. We wear the same clothes, we feel the same thing. It's a weird, weird generation we're in right now.

Rapping is a vocal delivery, so you can do it without being part of hip-hop and not knowing what hip-hop is about.

I think that a rap aficionado, the hardcore rap fan, will always go away from pop, in the same way a hardcore jazz fan will never think Kenny G is really a jazz artist. You gotta kind of know there's always going to be that purist who's going to be like if it ain't beats and rhymes, if there ain't a DJ, then that ain't Hip Hop.

I always knew that I had to direct. That was something I'd wanted to do. Finally, I was just looking at the situation and I said, "I wanna document hip-hop, as an art form, seeing how a lot of people don't take it seriously."

There's a lot of films I've done I don't ever wanna see again.

I'm very much against the anonymity of bloggers and social media. I just hate it and I think it's really cowardly.

What's bad for the culture is wack rappers that get held in high regard like they're some great thing because it's the flavor of the month, but everybody knows they can't rap. I don't think it's hard, even for somebody who's not hip-hop, to know that that's not good. When you put them up against somebody that can really rhyme, you go, "Okay, I get it. This is what it should sound like."

The rock'n'roll lifestyle really is available to anybody that's got money. Honestly. Once you get money, if you interview a hundred people with money, they'll all sound like rock stars.

I've never been a cop hater. You know, when I was breaking the law, the cops were the opponent. I just thought I could outsmart them.

Anybody who speeds thinks they can outsmart the cops.

My father's family came from Virginia and Philadelphia. He wasn't a brother who talked a lot. He was a working man, a quiet, blue-collar dude.

My father died early. My mother died early. I started hanging with the gangs. I'm on the streets; I'm committing crimes. And the music came along, and this music just took me on a different road.

You've got the Wall Street situation, the sub-prime situation. You've got a black president. We've got wars. We've got unemployment. But the music doesn't reflect that. And I challenge anybody to show me a music that's on the radio that reflects that.

Rap is rock 'n' roll. Rock is when you push the buttons in the system; when you say, I'm not going along with what you're saying. That's rock, whether it's done with guitars, or it's done with just beats.

I think all music - not just rap - has fallen into this very diluted, delusional state, where everyone's singing about money and having cars, and having all this fun; when really, people are losing their homes.

I've been in crime for a long time and I know that the actual move isn't the actual crime: the crime continues [afterwards].

Truthfully, a weak rapper can hide behind a lot of production.

I was a pretty bad person early in my life.

I'd say people are victims of circumstances and they're limited to the opportunities that they see. Even though there might be more opportunities, you might not see them. You might just think, "I don't have any options." You usually go to the dark side, in that situation.

When I was younger I never drank. I never drank, I never did any weed or drugs or anything because I felt it would compromise my position. I was an orphan, and I had a feeling like if I ever hit the ground I may never get back up.

I'm not going to allow anybody to hold a badge up over me or a cross or any other power symbol and say I'm going to kill you and you're just going to kneel down to me because I'm the law.

You could be a Green Beret and a kid could jump out from behind a building and hit you with a rock. No matter how tough you become in the military, there's a way to die: there's nothing safe about it.

I'm a big Brad Pitt fan. He's really talented. I think a lot of men are intimidated by him, saying he's just a pretty boy or whatever, but he is a bad man. I think he can act.

Anybody who has anybody in the armed forces, I don't care how well-trained they are, there's nothing safe about it.

I look at my career and I feel I have the potential to maybe mature into a Samuel Jackson-type older cat, and people will still respect me and say 'Yo, Ice-T was wild', into my old age. And why not? I don't necessarily think I'll be rapping in 10 years.

I just don't believe that there's any way that you're ever gonna get one peace, because everybody has different ways of seeing life.

Rap music came along and saved my life. I started to tell the stories of the streets and that was my way out.

The trick with hip-hop-hip-hop is a sport. The only music that's really, really close to a sport. It starts off, "My DJ's better than yours. I can out-rap you, I can out-dance you, my graffiti piece is better than you." It's very competitive.

Everyone who raps isn't hip-hop. To be hip-hop, you've got to know the culture. You got to know the history.

When I make records I have full control of everything and I know how it sounds before it comes out, with films it's outta my hands.

That's basically the gangster code. Just be yourself. Just be you, dog. The easiest way to get your card plucked around a gangster is to be a fake. If we feel like you're trying too hard, if you're trying to act like you're from the street, you're in trouble.

I'm afraid because some police are way out of control. My true feeling with police is this: If they do their job, there's no problem.

It's like a paradox. For one side, being popularized rap got better and the other side of it got worse. It's very pop and it's very different now. When you make it as pop and as soft as it is, it lacks its integrity. It lacks its accountability. It lacks a lot of other things that came from that dangerous time in hip hop.

When I recorded my first album, my ego didn't let me believe that what I was gonna say on the mic, anyone would really care about. But then when I found out that they did, I started to take it more seriously.

I've lectured at Stanford, Princeton & Harvard to name a few... I just might be smarter than YOU

I've got a phone, answer machine, TV set, computer, hand grenade - everything you need to run a business in Los Angeles.

Hip-hop is a competition culture. It's based around, "My DJ is better than you. My graffiti artist is better than you."

Dealing with the old school rappers, you see a lot of humility. When you're new, nothing is wrong. Everything is tight. Because you're trying to hype the world into believing in you.

What I'm trying to tell people is that police brutality in the 'hood is nothing new. And the thing is that whether this guy, the cop killer in my song, is real or not, believe it, there are people at that point.

If you really listen to my music my music is more like stories than party records. I never made party records.

I've always been a person that, if I'm with a woman, she's in the picture.

I've always been a person that, if I'm with a woman, she's in the picture. Even my son's mom, she was on my early (album) covers.

You know, the radio never wanted you to speak about anything, so the music is kinda influenced by the hands of the radio which wants to homogenize it and dilute it and sanitize it. And for the most part, nobody's takin' the time to seek out the cats that are still tryin' to talk, so they have a difficult time being heard.

A lot of times people would offer me movies and, because I'm a car freak, I'd look in a magazine and say, 'How much is this car? If you give me this car I'll show up and do the movie' I call 'em 'sports car flicks'.