Quotes About Identity

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

South Central is just who I am. 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.

How about it, an Iceberg with a warm heart?

If you believe that I'm a cop killer, you believe David Bowie is an astronaut.

That's basically the gangster code. Just be yourself. Just be you, dog. The easiest way to get your card plucked around a gangster is to be a fake. If we feel like you're trying too hard, if you're trying to act like you're from the street, you're in trouble.

B. & Rakim. Then straight after that we did the Bring the Noise tour with Public Enemy, N.W.A, and EPMD. "Colors" was always my opening song.

song; what pissed them off is that white people liked it. When we played it there were thousands of white kids at our shows, wilding out in pits, shouting the words with fists in the air.

No longer a jewel thief; once again my mama's son.

And in those final years, when he was off doing shit on his own, Spike didn't stick to the rules. He started to think he was too smart. Too ingenious. He was definitely feeling himself. He even changed his name. When I met him, he was simply

Spike," but at some point, he decided to go by "Magic Spike." That tells you everything. In his own mind, he became magic. That was his downfall. And it's the downfall of almost all players and gangsters and hustlers. They get away with breaking the law so many times,

At first, I got bused to a junior high in Culver City—a mostly white school—but for tenth grade, I decided I wanted to walk to Crenshaw High. Man, talk about culture shock. Crenshaw was where I first got introduced to the

All through high school, I was reading Iceberg Slim. He was the first author I discovered who truly delved

I wasn't a gangbanger. I never joined a set. Never jumped in. I realized quickly that you don't have to join the gang; you just need to be cool with the leaders of

At Crenshaw, I was already known as a player. I didn't let anyone call me by my real name—Tracy. That would start fights. Niggas would say, "Tracy? That's a bitch's name." And shit would pop

off. I always went by "Tray" or "Crazy Tray.

Ser humano y mujer, ni más ni menos.

For me, 'Rent' was all about coming out of myself, finding out who I was, learning the power I could have as a performer.

I'd been a wedding singer through college, but after a few years of doing my best renditions of jazz standards to clinking glasses and the sound of forks on salad, I thought, 'Oh God, if this is all I do, I'll never be able to live with myself.'

The person that you feel yourself to be, according to the Sufis, is a false person, which has no true reality.

One of the great Sufis said: 'A saint is a saint unless he knows that he is one.

Do not think that your magic ring will work if you are not yourself Solomon.

I have heard all that you have had to say to me on your problems. You ask me what to do about them. It is my view that your real problem is that you are a member of the human race. Face that one first.

Man thinks many things. He thinks he is One. He is usually several. Until he becomes One, he cannot have a fair idea of what he is at all.

Inheritance and culture obscure people's higher capacities.