Ice cube quotes

I feel like I got a whole lot of living to do before I think about summing it up in a book.

Our household is built on love and respect. And we don't really let negative vibes stay too long. It's worked out. I got a great family, great kids.

I think when hip hop first started, people were open to it, and groups like Public Enemy and there was groups like Poor Righteous Teachers and all these people who were spitting a lot of knowledge, a lot of history, questioning a lot of societal barriers was starting to be super popular.

I identify with the bottom of the pyramid, because, outside of having money, I am at the bottom of the pyramid.

I want to do more drama. Comedy is the path of least resistance for my company. People know we can do them. People know they get a good response. People want to make them. Who am I to push up against that?

I never was in the Nation of Islam... I mean, what I call myself is a natural Muslim, 'cause it's just me and God.

Early in my career, people wanted to hear music about protest, about trying to change things.

Should I peel a cap or should I let him survive?

I'm always the "less is more" guy when it comes to a scene. So I'ma be the one who will keep it grounded. Even if I let it go off and go crazy, I'm still the voice of keeping things grounded in reality.

You want the industry to finally admit that you're good. But I'm still good without their admission.

Sports without music is just a game. Music makes it entertaining.

I think, to me, reality is better than being fake.

Seeing my son getting roughed up by the police is not fun. It brings back memories of when I got roughed up by them. He grew up totally different than how I grew up, and to me, he shouldn't have to go through that.

I believe every pencil has to be sharpened every now and then to stay sharp, or you dull out. So my records, I chose to speak on what black people do, what white people do, what women do, what men do.

Everybody in the world has to compromise. I don't know one person that gets everything they want, so the politicians are going to have to figure that out and stop pointing out, "He shook hands with a Democrat in 1989. He ate with a Republican last week." It's petty high school, even junior high stuff going on. It's junior high politics going on, so it's a shame.

There's rumors in the Twittersphere. If I find out that any of my officer is giving out drug and alcohol I send their ass to prison with a snorkel duct-taped to their mouth and me s***ing down that Snorkel

I think people, if you really want to be happy, you have to find God yourself, and you're going to have to have a personal, one-on-one relationship and not look to get through these traditions or these rituals and all this crazy stuff when you could talk to him right here, right now, anytime, anywhere, any place, from any position. And that's the kind of relationship you want, not a standard.

Sometimes, when you want to laugh, reality steps in.

I know that there are obstacles; I know that there are hills to climb, I know there were people before me that made my journey easier and there are people behind me that I have made the journey easier for.

I believe our society has fell into a pyramid system where there's people relegated to the bottom of that pyramid and there's people that feel like they're entitled to the top of that pyramid.

If you give anybody the chance, they can always make a decent human being out of themselves. It's the people that don't have a chance, that we look down at like they're monsters or they're animals or that they want something different than the rest of us.

I think you have to find how the machine can work for you. That's what I mean by "attaching yourself to the machine," 'cause the machine is going to be there, and you can rage against the machine, which is cool, but there's ways that you can benefit off the machine if you're savvy enough and you're sharp enough, smart enough. We all got to live and eat.

I definitely support cop acting more than cops, but all of them ain't bad, just some of them.

Money is the root of all evil. Yeah, money is the root. It's not racism and "this-ism" and "that-ism"; it's our thirst and hunger for money. And that's where all the bodies are buried.

You wanna be remembered for making an impact and changing things.And I guess for the good or for the bad, it don't matter. But I guess you just wanna be remembered when it's all said and done.

Keep doin' what you're doin', fall in love with what you're creating, and everything else will fall into place.

I did Are We There Yet? because I wanted to do a movie for my fans' kids. Black kids don't really see movies on this budget for them, starring them. And there's so many white kids that love that movie.

But with rap music - not just N.W.A. - but rap music in general, seeing these artists wearing these team logos all the time started bringing a synergy and energy about having to rep your city, your team, everywhere and all the time.

Anything that got to do with a pig, I ain't eatin'.

I'm always happy. I've just got a mean face.

The moral is that a career can be gone in an instant. And all you have in this world are the people you love.

I think reading is important in any form. I think a person who's trying to learn to like reading should start off reading about a topic they are interested in, or a person they are interested in.

I'm a menace to society, But girls in biker shorts are so fly to me. After the date, I'mma want to do the wild thing... You're talkin' lobster? I'm thinkin' Burger King.

Get a grip, Oreo, and be true to the game.

Rap is just somebody getting something off his chest. That's all it is.

To me, in a perfect world, you have the flavor and the magic of movies like 48 Hours, Lethal Weapon and Bad Boys.

The thing is with hip-hop, it has its waves and the waves crash against the beach and the new waves come in. So to stay relevant you have to roll with that.

Even though I have a nice house, nice family, the rest of my generation is still in South Central L.A. My cousins, my brothers, my sisters, they don't wanna move out. They don't want to and they don't have the means to sustain it. That's where my heart is and that's what I think about all the time.

Everybody thinks the grass is greener on the other side. If you talk to most artists, they think they can play something, you know, "If I had stayed playing football in high school, if I had been doing basketball..." Everybody's got their fantasies and thinks the grass is greener. It's not. It's not.

You pay to have a good time, you don't always want to pay to be schooled or sad or reminded how bad you got it. To me a movie theater ain't always the place for that.

If you born in the mud, you gonna be dirty, and people don't understand that.

I don't cook gumbo, but I just know it's a lot of good ingredients in it. And, with a movie, you got to have all those ingredients.

When I was in N.W.A. and didn't get paid all the money I was owed, that's when the business side of showbiz hit me. I thought, "Half of this is workin'. I'm famous, but now I need to be famous with some money." That got my brain started at trying to figure out the business end. And once I figured out the business side, I next came to understand that success really comes down to the product, not to me, my personality, or what club I'm seen going into or coming out of. None of that matters.

There's things people say in the barbershop they won't even say in their own living room, because it's just one of those zones where nobody's going to judge you too much about your dumb opinion.

I always was like, "Yo, I'm here, I might as well get what I could take."

Truth is the ultimate power. When the truth comes around, all the lies have to run and hide.

There's a lot of potential that goes unused in places like South Central L.A., a lot of brilliant, smart people who just don't have that chance to show it.

You can't pussyfoot around. When you're talking to lions, you can't meow like a pussycat.

Don't worry about being a star, worry about doing good work, and all that will come to you.

Embrace what makes up you. Some stereotypes are true - I love chicken, but that's a stereotype, I love f**king basketball, but that's a stereotype, too. But who cares? Embrace it. Be who you are, and don't be ashamed of what that is.

I'm not actually from Compton - I'm from South Central Los Angeles, and my father still lives in the same house I grew up in, so I'm there all the time.

Don't get a movie confused with real life. I'm a well-rounded human being like everyone else.

Music is where I have the most creative freedom, but I love producing. To me, that's kind of where all the action is. You get a chance to have your hands in every aspect of a film. From picking a director, sometimes picking a writer, to the actors, the wardrobe, set design, editing, music, and marketing.

God damn, it's a brand new payback From the straight gangsta mack in straight gangsta black How many motherfuckers gotta pay Went to the shelf and dusted off the AK Caps gotta get peeled Cause "The Nigga Ya Love to hate" still can "Kill at Will"

I been all around the world and I haven't found a city that I'd rather be from or rather come back to than Los Angeles.

I think my fans respect me for bein' as truthful and honest as you can be and still be Rap music and not be opinion music. It's still Rap, its still style, flavor, flair, and people just kind of like how I present myself and the things that I do.

I'm not trying to turn into Eddie Murphy, and just do kids movies the rest of my career. I'm going to still do a wide variety of movies, as well as do hardcore rap.

You don't wanna mess up what you've done. It's like Jordan coming back: You're scared to mess up the legacy.

I have a really beautiful life right now, so there is no reason to be hostile. I'm a husband, a father and a man who tries to do the right thing in life and in my work.

Our records, if you have a dark sense of humor, were funny, but our records weren't about comedy. They were about protests, fantasy, confrontation and all that.

Today I didn't even have to even use my A.K ! I got to say it was a good day

The biggest change in the government's behavior has been because of TV and its ability to show to the world what has happened in this community... that's the biggest change. But without TV... the separation between the government and the people would be much worse than it is.

You have to resist falling in love with the money they [producers] want to give you. You have to really resist that, and you have to just think about the work and whether it's a movie that you would want to see.

If you love what you do, and you believe in your talent, there's nothing better than breaking through. There's no better feeling than breaking through.

There's nothing wrong with starting off in a box, but you got to have a plan to come out that box.

I was given the name by my brother when I was about eleven or twelve years old. He was older than me, and around that age I was starting to get into girls, and when they would call the house for him, and when he was not there, I would try to talk to them. I was trying to be the man and trying to get them to come and see me, not worrying about him. When he found out... he started calling me Ice Cube as a joke because he said I was trying to be too cool. I just liked it and started telling everybody in the hood "my name is Ice Cube."

I've always gotten good grades, you know, with my teachers and my English teachers, 'cause I was able to - they'd say, "What did you do for the summer?" I'm able to explain it to them in a written form. And my teachers always patted me on the back for that, being able to take what's in my mind and put it on paper.

Don't want to hear my favorite rapper doin' a love song. If I want to hear something soft, I'll throw on Luther Vandross.

[Boycott Oscar] is like crying about not having enough icing on your cake. It's just ridiculous.

Create your own path, hone your talent, be ready to show your talent, and don't doubt yourself.

I've been fighting my whole career to show a different side and prove naysayers - not prove them wrong, because I don't think you should get your energy from negative people.

Gangsta to us didn't have anything to do with Al Capone and stuff like that. It's just about living your life the way you want to live it. And you're not going to let nothing stop you.

If you really look at my lyrics, nobody's exempt. Nobody's exempt from observation, criticism or what I think is correction.

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall with a joint, drinking some eight-ball.

Money comes and goes, but your inner feelings, your gut feelings, your manhood, your womanhood, whatever, that stays with you. That don't go anywhere. So you either proud of who you are and how you handle situations or you not. If you handle a situation wrong, you, it will haunt you.

Ice Cube is the piece of me that I give away to the public.

You got to get used to somebody, when you're acting or going through a scene, somebody yelling, "Do it a little louder!" OK, you do it a little louder.

If I only had 24 hours to live, I would spend the time telling everybody I love that I love them.

I have great people, smart people that are around me and we love the challenge. I guess it's like climbing a mountain or building a building. It's a challenge but you love every challenge that it brings or presents itself.

Doing it your own way, not having to go exactly by the book to be successful.

What I learned from architectural drafting is that everything has to have a plan to work. You just can't wing it. I can't get all the materials I need for a house and just start building. Whether it's a career, family, life - you have to plan it out.

A lot of people have a misconception of what the ghetto is all about. You know, it's only a small percentage of the people that are bad. Everybody else is good.

A bird in the hand is worth more than a Bush.

I love any time you can enlighten people to mistakes, that's how I started my career.

South Central is just who I am.

Never question the size of Ice Cube's balls!

My son Darrel could recite 'Straight Outta Compton' at two years old. He loved it! You can expose your kids to anything as long as you sit there and explain it to them.

The best thing I've done with my money is buy a house for my family. You wake up to a house you love and you feel like somebody.

I love music. It's freedom, a way to deal with pent-up frustration.

Any time there's racism somewhere in sports, we should get it out of there because sports is a place where everything's supposed to be fair.

We should love the fact that we're not just getting one point of view. That we have this diversity in entertainment, and people are not scared to be themselves, and people are not scared to make people uncomfortable, and that's all part of it. That's all part of being free.

I always want to read the script before I totally commit.

I think everybody likes a person that stands up for themselves. Nobody likes a punk or a coward.

I do what I do. You like it, great. You don't, go listen to somebody else. I'm stickin' with the people who stuck with me.

Sometimes when you're relegated to your neighborhood, you forget that there's more important things than your neighborhood going on out in the world.

Most of the problems that we have are brought on by the government and not by music. Music is a mirror of what we're going through, not the cause of what we're going through.

I used to love to draw. I didn't want to go to art class because I felt that would be too corny when I was young, but architectural drafting was the cool thing to do because there was more precision. It taught me a lot about building and structures and doorways and frames and windowsills.

Don't talk about death, I've got too much life to live, To many orders to give.

You wanna be remembered for making an impact and changing things. I guess for the good or for the bad, it don't matter. But I guess you just wanna be remembered when it's all said and done.

The real is always presented. That hardcore record or movie is not needed in the hood, because it's already there. You can see it with your own eyes.

I wish the world would become what God wanted it to be in the first place, before we tampered with it.

I think the worst thing you can do about a situation is nothing.

The best thing to do is to write about what you know, and if you write about what you know you can always pull those nice little tidbits that hook people, that shows that you know about this world and can bring people into a world that they may not know nothing about.

You like a woman, she's got kids, it's a package. You can't just go in one-sided.

Keep everybody out your business, that's how you do it. And I mean everybody. It ain't about having a relationship outside of the house. It's about having a relationship within each other. When something go down don't be calling your sister or your mother; I'm not gonna be calling my brother or uncles. We're gonna work it out.

I'm always open, and will criticize myself, too. And I just think being that honest with everybody puts you in a different space than somebody who's just shooting venom at a certain group or a certain amount of individuals.

Creating is really what I like to do. The best thing in the world is to have an idea in the back of your head and then to make that idea into a movie and have people all over the world enjoy it.

Everybody who comes from the gangster life - they want what that man in the suburbs wants. Nice family. Nice house. Nice cars. Bills paid. Kids in school. Food on the table. Nothing more.

If the day did not require an AK then it was good

The creative process of making a movie really turned me on. I'd started getting behind the scenes with a camcorder and VHS tape when making music videos.

I was ready to get out of the box and play something a little different than what everybody has seen.

If you think about stuff that happened when you were young, it stays with you forever.

You don't have to be super clean to be a super star

I make a mean cup of coffee, if you give me the right ingredients.

Sometimes you got to start somewhere. And it's cool, as long as where you start is not where you plan on finishing.

I grew up in the seventies and disco was big. That influenced me the most.

Nowadays, you can be yourself. You don't have to put on façade. You can be who you are and still be just as successful as the ones who put on the fake façade. You know, it's like reality is just as important as fiction.

When I was six, God was a white man with a big beard riding on a white cloud. That's the image television pumps.

The hardest period for a writer is the period in-between writing. That's when you can go crazy if you don't allow the creative juices to flow.

I don't get nothing but love. In every ghetto all over the world. Nothing but love. They respect that I came outta there and I'm doing it the right way. You can't do nothing but respect that.

I love makin' music, so whether I'ma make money at it or not, I'ma still do it. The thing is, I've gotten to a point where I don't have to use music to make a livin', so I can do it for fun like I used to when I was young.

The silver and black may have another home, but the Raiders will always belong to the people of Los Angeles.

My advice for anyone who wants to follow in my footsteps: create your own path, hone your talent, be ready to show your talent, and don't doubt yourself.

You can do anything in the world if you say "Hey man, don't blame me, the devil made me do it. It's an easy way to escape responsibility."

It's easier for me to get comedies made because of my track record. Everybody needs to find their niche. I love dramas, but I understand that I am still just a young man in moviemaking. I know there will be some time to get back to that.