Hollywood is a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.

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.

Material things ain’t nothing. You feel me? At the end of the day, it’s who you is. You wasn’t born with it; you gon‘ die without it.

It’s very intense to be in front of a live audience. It’s just an amazing experience. It’s dangerous. Everything out there is heightened. The bad stuff is extra-worse. The silences are extra-silent. The good stuff is amazing. It’s electric when you walk out there. For 90 minutes, you’re on this other planet.

I’m a mama’s boy because everything I do is with respect to my mother. I won’t do a movie or a video that would bring disrespect to my mother.

Money for me today does not really matter.

You know that being an American is more than a matter of where your parents came from. It is a belief that all men are created free and equal and that everyone deserves an even break.

He does not possess wealth; it possesses him.

I want you to feel happy and enjoy the theatre of my life the way that I do. No matter what happens with my music and wherever I go – that heart of that glamorous girl in New York will never be gone.

I wanted to have the adoration of John Lennon but have the anonymity of Ringo Starr. I didn’t want to be a frontman. I just wanted to be back there and still be a rock and roll star at the same time.

In the West, we have been withdrawing from our tradition-, religion-, and even nation-centred cultures.

To appreciate the noble is a gain which can never be torn from us.

If I close my eyes and think of Hollywood, all I see is one big varicose vein.

Modesty forbids what the law does not.

I don’t call up the press and say, ‚Look at me!‘

Fame will go by and, so long, I’ve had you, fame. If it goes by, I’ve always known it was fickle. So at least it’s something I experience, but that’s not where I live.

I’m the same kid who used to hop the trains with headphones and just go to downtown Manhattan, walk around and listen to music or walk through the city. The fame restricts that. It’s a small complaint in comparison to the benefits I get from it, but the restrictive part is what I don’t like – and the fact that it’s not reversible.

We only need so much to survive, but this world we live in tells us we need more stuff to be happy. We’re inundated with our televisions, the Internet and advertising that says in order to be happy you have to have these things. When you say, ‚Gimme, gimme, gimme,‘ you will always be in short supply.

All great peoples are conservative.

You lose your individuality a huge amount when you have no money, and I certainly had that experience.

Respect is one of life’s greatest treasures. I mean, what does it all add up to if you don’t have that?

You can not divorce religious belief and public service. I’ve never detected any conflict between God’s will and my political duty. If you violate one, you violate the other.

Those who know me know I’m passionate about lists, and top of my list of priorities is my family. My wife Joan and I do not consider our legacy to our children to be wealth or fame but the opportunity to pursue happiness by following their own path.

I seem to be getting a lot of things pushed my way that are strong women. It’s like people see Hackers and they send me offers to play tough women with guns, the kind who wear no bra and a little tank top. I’d like to play strong women who are also very feminine.

I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.

I don’t believe in killing whatever the reason!

Many religious confessions share common values. They teach that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

Fame may go by and – so long, I’ve had you.

If you have a family mission statement that clarifies what your purpose is, then you use that as the criterion by which you make the decisions.

People must have righteous principals in the first, and then they will not fail to perform virtuous actions.

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

There are people who have money and people who are rich.

Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.

Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.

Well, I thought the deal was, when you went to work for the government you weren’t supposed to make money!

It’s like a muscle – if you stop going to the gym or stop running, you get weak. The military teaches you these great values, but we don’t keep up the discipline on our own, and we lose it. So wherever you go, keep that discipline up.

The nice thing about being a celebrity is that, if you bore people, they think it’s their fault.

What’s so beautiful about Miami is that we support each other. We’re just one big family, not just the entertainers, just everyone in general.

Mickey Mouse popped out of my mind onto a drawing pad 20 years ago on a train ride from Manhattan to Hollywood at a time when business fortunes of my brother Roy and myself were at lowest ebb and disaster seemed right around the corner.

Celebrity is ridiculous and silly and it’s mad that people like me are listened to – you know, rap stars and movie stars.

On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, ‚Is it safe?‘ Expediency asks the question, ‚Is it politic?‘ And Vanity comes along and asks the question, ‚Is it popular?‘ But Conscience asks the question, ‚Is it right?‘

I’m filthy rich!

I wanted a name I could shape the music towards. I was going to Miami quite a lot at the time, speaking a lot of Spanish with my friends from Cuba – ‚Lana Del Rey‘ reminded us of the glamour of the seaside. It sounded gorgeous coming off the tip of the tongue.

What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more.

Somehow, we have come to the erroneous belief that we are all but flesh, blood, and bones, and that’s all. So we direct our values to material things.

It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.

I think, first of all, I don’t think people understand Ice Cube’s body of work. Ice Cube is a, and I hate to use the word ‚urban‘ but – when you think of Judd Apatow, and a person who’s launched so many careers, Ice Cube has done that for so many comedians, you know?

I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name.

I’m an instant star. Just add water and stir.

Better to die ten thousand deaths than wound my honor.

My favorite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.

The thing I really care about is the mission, making the world open.

Hollywood is not suited for me, and I am not suited for it.

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

Liking money like I like it, is nothing less than mysticism. Money is a glory.

My dream is to be World Lightweight Champion in the UFC. Have more money than I know what to do with. And have a great life for my kids, grandkids, and everyone in my family.

The highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money do more for the betterment of life.

This film cost $31 million. With that kind of money I could have invaded some country.

I had three points I wanted to make: That not everybody in Hollywood is on the left, that Obama has broken a lot of the promises he made when he took office, and that the people should feel free to get rid of any politician who’s not doing a good job. But I didn’t make up my mind exactly what I was going to say until I said it.

Hollywood has a way of making everything seem like an overnight success.

I like to think of Everest as a great mountaineering challenge, and when you’ve got people just streaming up the mountain – well, many of them are just climbing it to get their name in the paper, really.