Ice T Quotes

I'm at a point where I don't have to wait for the income from the record to survive, so I'm in a comfortable zone, but I'll make rap records as long as I feel I have something to rap about.

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.

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

I've never been competitive with anybody but myself.

Who can protect themselves from betrayal? The day your brother wakes up and plans to do you dirty, there's no defense against that.

Real men hold themselves accountable for stuff.

I think when people say 'real hip-hop,' they want it more buried in the streets. They want it more connected to the streets and the grime and the roughness of the streets. They don't want the fluff.

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.

Oh man, nobody is as tough as Mr T. Ice T is pretty tough though as well.

I think men, growing up, you have to go through some form of hardship. You've got to harden the metal.

Dog's just want to sniff an ass and eat some food.

The right to bear arms is because it's the last form of defense against tyranny.

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

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.

When you start a business, go for the lowest hanging fruit.

Yeah, it's legal in the United States. It's part of our Constitution. You know, the right to bear arms is because that's the last form of defense against tyranny. Not to hunt. It's to protect yourself from the police.

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.

Being happily married, I’m more focused on what I’m doing. Ya know, one of my quotes is ‘love isn’t looking somebody in the eyes; it’s looking out in the same direction.

Another thing about me 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.

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

With the invention of the blog and all this Internet stuff, everybody has an opinion; everybody has a voice. In fact, there was a time when the average person didn't have a voice so you had to pick an artist to speak for you.

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.

The truth is, everybody I've ever met who's successful is a workaholic.

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

The best way to listen to the album is to put it on, get some Moet, lay back with your boys, and kick it.

When you start to really travel and you get to these abstract like places in the world, you would see certain people's names. It seemed like we could go anywhere. Like when we went to Afghanistan, you'd see in the dressing room Run DMC's name. Certain rappers are like journey men.

Any New York group can come to L.A. and sell out every show, but an L.A. group who goes to New York might not do the same because the audience hasn't been introduced to the group.

I'm on the front line and I am a rapper.

There was a time when people would go search out underground records. Now, underground means free, and people don't really care for it. So now artists tend to go more pop and look for the radio. 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, like Chuck D said.

You can't just sing the song and live another life, you know. It's really difficult now because that's not what it's about. It's pop and pop just says that we could be actors. We could sing about stuff and not believe in it. It could be absolutely fraudulent and it doesn't really matter.

I don't watch daytime television, I have a job, I work and, you know, I think daytime television is really for women.

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."

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.

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.

So from an actor's perspective, you really have no idea how you're acting.

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

...As an artist, you need the naysayers and the nonbelievers to add fuel to your creative fire.

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.

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

I've never read for a movie, I've always been given them.