When I made Illmatic, I was trying to make the perfect album. It comes from the days of Wild Style. I was trying to make you experience my life. I wanted you to look at hip-hop differently. I wanted you to feel that hip-hop was changing and becoming something more real.

The greatest sin is fear and giving up.

I love PBS! I grew up on it. If I had to say which channels were good, I'd say, you got your PBS, your History Channel, your Discovery.

Just do as much as you can.

No temporary chaos is worth your sanity.

The flaws, the mistakes I make - that's the real me.

I broke into shakespeare's tomb and stole his remains, grinded the bones, smoked it, then got in the game