Sunlight and seeing something that was a thought become a thing and materialize - that makes me come alive.

I'm never gonna die, never heard of death, energy can never be destroyed only the flesh, so when you try to murder me with bullets to the head this is why you can't kill me niggaz, I'm already dead.

People give me a better understanding on things that I said, or a different way to look at it.

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.

Niggas hate what they can't understand, fear what they can't conquer

The hardest thing is to forgive, but God does, even if you murdered or robbed, ya it's wrong, but God loves, take one step toward him he'll take two toward you, even when all else fails, God'll support you

I want you to know who I am: what the streets taste like, feel like, smell like. What the cops talk like, walk like, think like. What crackheads do - I wanted you to smell it, feel it. It was important to me that I told the story that way because I thought that it wouldn't be told if I didn't tell it.