Ice T Quotes

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

Passion makes the world go round. Love just makes it a safer place.

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.

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.

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.

Arnold Schwarzenegger blew away dozens of cops as the Terminator. But I don't hear anybody complaining about that.

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

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

You can't get what you want all the time in life.

I've been pulled out of my nice new car and laid out in the street by the police, interrogated and then have them get in the car and roll off leaving me lying in the street without even saying 'Get up.' The humiliation that they can put on a black man because they determine that you ain't got the money.

If I do a song where I'm angry, when it's time to perform it live I'm not mad, I'm happy. I'm at a concert. But I have to somehow drum up that rage. That's acting.

There is no such thing as a normal family so don't trip off it, just deal with it.

When you hit the wall, it's how fast you come back.

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.

A lot of people play single to work some angle. I'm always about keeping it real. If that's how I'm living, that's how I'm living.

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.

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."

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.

Jay-Z is like a rap-savant, he doesn't have to write the rhymes down, he can create complex raps in his head. I mean he does memorize it, he just doesn't write it down on paper. He doesn't freestyle onto the track, it's all thought out.

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

People think I'll kill you if you make a joke. I compare it to Clint Eastwood. I've only seen Clint Eastwood in movies. You think if you make a joke to Eastwood, he might shoot you.

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.

When we say a rapper, a rapper can say a rhyme. But an MC can rock a party.

I think everybody wants to redeem themselves after they've done something that might be considered negative. I don't think anyone wants to go to the grave negative.

Being in the military just lets you know how helpless you are. You could train forever but you're still at the mercy of someone in the Pentagon, or somebody in the rear moving you around like a chess piece.

That's one of the first things that comes out of young people's mouths when they're in love. FOREVER. And that's cool, it's all good-until you get old enough to realize what forever is.

You can't just sing the song and live another life.

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 didn't start off with the responsibility because I didn't think anybody would care. But as you do meet these people influenced by your music, then you start to understand you have a responsibility. I don't think you initially know it until you feel the power of what you're really doing.

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

I'm a far cry from politically correct, because I don't really care what the political views are. I don't care what the people say. I'll say my opinion. That will always make you controversial.

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.

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.

I don't rhyme for the sake of riddlin'. If I say it, I gotta be able to back it up.

There's a point where a cop pulls you out of that car and starts abusing you or beating on you and at that moment he is no longer within the law.

It's just that when you heard hip-hop, no matter where you were, it was a culture that kind of made you want to try to be part of it. Whether you thought you were an artist, whether you thought you could be a DJ, whether you thought you could breakdance, or whether you thought you could rap. It was the kind of culture that had a lot of open doors.

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.

Winners have to absorb losses.

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

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'.

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.

Everybody is doing you a favor when you're doing a documentary. You can't pressure them into it.

If I'm going to be a jazz player, I need to understand Miles Davis.

Military is a great place for a jock. That's the first thing they test you, they test you physically. If you can run, if you can do the pushups, it's not as hard a transition. If you can't do that, you're going to have a problem because they're going to really work it out of you or work it into you.

I was a pretty bad person early in my life.

The more you try to suppress us, the larger we get.

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 write rhymes with addition and algebra, mental geometry.