"If you keep eating McDonald's, you gonna get sick. You need a real home-cooked meal. And I knew that that would be healthier. And that's what Wu-Tang was: It was a home-cooked meal of hip-hop. Of the real people."
"I thought that Wu-Tang was the best sword style - the best sword-style of martial arts. And the tongue is like a sword. And so I say that we have the best lyrics, so, therefore, we are the Wu-Tang Clan."
"Method Man is a rough, rugged street dude, but all the girls love him."
"When Def Jam wanted to sign Method Man, they wanted to sign Method Man and Old Dirty. And Old Dirty wanted to be on Def Jam - everybody, that was like the dream label. But if I had Old Dirty and Method Man on Def Jam, that's two key pieces going in the same direction, whereas there's other labels that needed to be infiltrated."
"When you defeat somebody, you're not really defeating them: they're defeating themselves."
"I'm a director! I don't work with no amateurs!"
"With '8 Diagrams,' I just skimmed the surface of musical exploration."
"The way you have to think in chess is good for everyday thinking, really, especially for brothers in the urban community who never take that second look, never take that second thought."
"I was definitely a big Run-DMC fan."
"I was writing lyrics since I was nine years old, so by age 15, I was feeling pretty confident about my talent."
"I always argue with a lot of people. They ask me for my top rappers, and he's always on my list. I mean, the GZA inspired me."
"'Rainy Dayz' and 'Glaciers of Ice,' those two songs - I mean, I just love those songs."
"I thought about doing '36 Chambers' on Broadway."
"A lot of people don't know this about Wu-Tang, it started from a focused mind. I was given total autonomy to do whatever I want with them... They agreed, to me, to be a dictator for five years. And in those five years, it's considered some of our best work."
"I got a bad habit of creating."
"I'd love to make 10 to 12 films in my life. That's a lot of films, but it's doable."
"Art - the beautiful thing about art, from my standpoint, is that it has no discrimination."
"I tell my sons, I say, if you're going somewhere, you don't have to wear a hoodie - we live in New York, so a hoodie and all that is all good. But sometimes, you know, button up your shirt. Clean up."
"If I'm a cop, and every time I see a young black youth - whether I watch them on TV, movies, or just see them hanging out - and they're not looking properly dressed, properly refined, you know, carrying himself, conducting himself proper hours of the day - things that a man does - you're going to have a certain fear and stereotype of them."
"I could never be a control freak. If Wu-Tang is a dictatorship, how does every Wu-Tang member have their own contract, their own career, and have put out more albums without me than they've done with me?"
"I don't have the same respect for time as most people. I take that extra day to think about it."
"Growing up, all of my friends would set their schedules to the showing of kung fu movies on TV."
"The influence of the Shaw Brothers films on my work has been profound. In addition to the richness of Asian culture, we at Wu-Tang were fascinated with the struggles between the oppressed Chinese villagers and the repressive Manchu authority and how it mirrored our own experiences growing up as black kids in America's inner cities."
"I live a very satisfying life. Not because I've made a few dollars, but because I have a wife who loves me and children who wait for me to come home. And that is beautiful. I think that's the American dream: to be at peace at home."
"Parenting is something that I got early, because when you grow up without a father being there, and you see a single mother struggle to feed the kids, you do not want to put your own blood through that."
