Eminem Quotes

I felt like I had a really bad case of writer’s block… Music is so therapeutic for me that if I can’t get it out, I start feeling bad about myself – a lot of self-loathing.

I need drama in my life to keep making music.

Nothing on ‚Relapse‘ and very little on ‚Recovery‘ was produced by me.

Ultimately, who you choose to be in a relationship with and what you do in your bedroom is your business.

The kids are old enough now – I just want to let them be kids. I don’t want to comment on them too much. They’re at an age where I just want to let them be kids.

You know, not to sound corny or nuthin‘, but I felt like a fighter comin‘ up, man. I felt like, you know, I’m being attacked for this reason or that reason, and I gotta fight my way through this.

The album requires a certain focus of mine that I can’t really explain – let’s just say it’s all I can really do while I’m doing it.

If you’re the parent, be a parent. You know what I mean? I’m a parent. I have daughters.

The writing process, the way I go about it is I do whatever the beat feels like, whatever the beat is telling me to do. Usually when the beat comes on, I think of a hook or the subject I want to rap about almost instantly. Within four, eight bars of it playing I’m just like, ‚Oh, OK. This is what I wanna do‘.

Being a student of hip-hop in general, you take technical aspects from places. You may take a rhyme pattern or flow from Big Daddy Kane or Kool G Rap.

Fame hit me like a ton of bricks.

When Bugs Bunny walks into rehab, people are going to turn and look. People at rehab were stealing my hats and pens and notebooks and asking for autographs. I couldn’t concentrate on my problem.

Hip-hop is ever changing but you’ll always have the pack. And you’ll always have those people who are separated from the pack.

I don’t think I ever thought of myself as Superman. But there were people who thought of me that way, and maybe I believed them a little.

I want to keep making records as long as I can, but I don’t know how long you can be taken seriously in rap.

Why is it so hard for people to believe that white people are poor?! I wouldn’t say I lived in a ghetto; I’d say I lived in the ‚hood. The same friends I had back then are the same people on tour with me now.

It’d be stupid for me to sit here and say that there aren’t kids who look up to me, but my responsibility is not to them. I’m not a baby sitter.

I always felt that if I was going to do a movie, I wanted it to be authentic.

Anybody with a sense of humor is going to put on my album and laugh from beginning to end.

I didn’t just invent saying offensive things.

Say there’s a white kid who lives in a nice home, goes to an all-white school, and is pretty much having everything handed to him on a platter – for him to pick up a rap tape is incredible to me, because what that’s saying is that he’s living a fantasy life of rebellion.

My overall look on things is a lot more mature than it used to be.

I do say things that I think will shock people. But I don’t do things to shock people. I’m not trying to be the next Tupac, but I don’t know how long I’m going to be on this planet. So while I’m here, I might as well make the most of it.

There was certainly, like, a rebellious, like, youthful rage in me. And there was also the fact of no getting away from fact that I am white, and you know, this is predominantly black music, you know.

Yeah, I did see where the people dissing me were coming from. But, it’s like, anything that happened in the past between black and white, I can’t really speak on it, because I wasn’t there. I don’t feel like me being born the color I am makes me any less of a person.

Rap was my drug.

I don’t think I’ve ever read poetry, ever. I’m not really book-smart.

Certainly I’m not going to sit on the Internet all day and read what Sam from Iowa is saying about me. But I’m a sponge. I’ve always been a sponge.

When you’re a little kid, you don’t see color, and the fact that my friends were black never crossed my mind. It never became an issue until I was a teenager and started trying to rap.

Before I was famous, when I was just working in Gilbert’s Lodge, everything was moving in slow motion.

I stopped watching TV because of ‚The Wire.‘ Like, ‚The Wire‘ ruined everything for me because I don’t even want to watch anything else now.

I don’t know if I ever feel totally great about a record when I put it out. With every record that I put out, someone has literally got to come pry it from me because when I listen to my own music, I just hear flaws in it.

I’d go to, like, six different schools in one year. We were on welfare, and my mom never ever worked.

A lot of my rhymes are just to get chuckles out of people. Anybody with half a brain is going to be able to tell when I’m joking and when I’m serious.

Sporadic thoughts will pop into my head and I’ll have to go write something down, and the next thing you know I’ve written a whole song in an hour.

I always say this about my music, and music in general: Music is like a time capsule. Each album reflects what I’m going through or what’s going on in my life at that moment.

When ‚Paul’s Boutique‘ came out, I was one of the fans that didn’t get it.

There was a while when I was feeling like, ‚Damn, if I’d just been born black, I would not have to go through all this‘.

I don’t even know how to speak up for myself, because I don’t really have a father who would give me the confidence or advice.

As for my stuff, I’m just doing guest verses for other people’s records. I try to stay recording, because if I don’t, I get rusty.

I’ve accomplished enough with the music that I haven’t had to go out there and do other things to over-saturate.

The details surrounding both my marriage and subsequent filing for divorce are private, and I had hoped to keep them that way for the sake of my family.

Hip hop has always been braggin‘ and boasting and ‚I’m better at you than this‘ and ‚I’m better at you than that.‘

I think my first album opened a lot of doors for me to push the freedom of speech to the limit.

Throughout my career, I fed off the fuel of people not being able to understand me.

These times are so hard, and they’re getting even harder.

I say what I want to say and do what I want to do. There’s no in between. People will either love you for it or hate you for it.

Nobody likes to fail. I want to succeed in everything I do, which isn’t much. But the things that I’m really passionate about, if I fail at those, if I’m not successful, what do I have?

I want to solidify as an artist and show that as I grow as a person and make mistakes and learn from them, I’m going to grow artistically.

It’s kind of like a challenge to myself to be able to hear somebody else’s hook and kind of interpret the words. Because my own hooks, I already know what I mean when I write them.

Trust is hard to come by. That’s why my circle is small and tight. I’m kind of funny about making new friends.

The truth is you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. Life is a crazy ride, and nothing is guaranteed.

Somewhere deep down there’s a decent man in me, he just can’t be found.

Everybody has goals, aspirations or whatever, and everybody has been at a point in their life where nobody believed in them.

I’m stupid, I’m ugly, I’m dumb, I smell. Did I mention I’m stupid?

A lot of truth is said in jest.

Dealing with backstabbers, there was one thing I learned. They’re only powerful when you got your back turned.

I am whatever you say I am; if I wasn’t, then why would you say I am.

Sometimes I feel like rap music is almost the key to stopping racism.

If people take anything from my music, it should be motivation to know that anything is possible as long as you keep working at it and don’t back down.