Ice Cube Quotations | Page 3

The '80s was wild compared to my real small childhood, which was late '70s.

I don't think people should try to force their will on their family.

You don't have to spend $200 million or $100 million to make a great movie.

There's not enough Ice Cubes out there. There's not enough Ice Cubes getting a chance to do their thing.

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

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.

You can go raise the money outside of the industry, and then what you're doing is fighting with your money to get back into the industry, or for them to use your money instead of their own. So, you got to figure out how to do it within the flow of the industry.

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.

I don't consider myself ever joining. But I have affiliations, for sure.

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.

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

I would love to meet Bob Marley. I mean, he's passed, but that's somebody that I would've loved to meet.

When you go to a movie, you don't care for one Oscar, really. Do you care if a guy got a Oscar on the shelf or is it a good movie? And, you don't care how much the movie made.

A good movie is a movie that you could see over and over again, not a movie that wins a Oscar, or a movie that makes a lot of money. It's a movie that you personally can watch over and over again. That, to me, is a measure of a good movie.

My wife keeps me sharp. You know, she ain't going to let me get comfortable with this "Ice Cube" stuff.

I like Obama, but I understand that his hands are tied, the way Congress is reacting. It's just partisan politics everywhere, and don't know how we going to get things done in the future without compromising a little bit.

You really have to challenge yourself to come out of those parameters that they put you in, even if that's your job.

Anybody that really knew Tupac will tell you the same thing. That he was just a dude that was full of life, full of energy.

I hear about people getting shot all the time. But most of the guys you hear about getting shot pulled through.

I was trying to be the best rapper in the world. I wasn't thinking about acting.

People wanted to have fun more than they wanted to learn from their music, and that's where the shift started to happen.

We used to have MTV and all these ways we can show our videos, and it was these rap shows, and it was everything. And then it became not cool to be conscious; it became cool to just hang out. Escapism rap became the norm. And, when I say "escapism rap", I mean getting high, get your cars, get your money, get your jewelry, go to the club, have your women, and it just became all about escaping your reality and not making your reality better on a real tip; not just on the have fun tip.

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.

I like to tell the streets what the political climate is, and I like to tell any politicians that's listening what the streets think. And sometimes people get nicked up and bruised up, but I usually have a lot of good medicine for that.

Comedies in Hollywood is usually the path of least resistance when it comes to being black in Hollywood and putting movies together. They would rather make us laugh than cry, in some respect.

Some comedians you work with, they only turn on when the camera turn on, and they're like sad-faced clowns when the camera's off. And then, they come alive when the camera come on. And you be like, "Oh, damn. You're not a depressed ball of depression, but you are actually funny."

I'm ready to run a studio. I'm ready to green light movies, and be in it to win it, you know? It's close. It'll happen.

I think when somebody goes to the movies and they spend their money and they take the girl out, the family, they want to have a good time. You don't always want to be hit over the head with history or how bad society is.

I'm interested in how things are put together, and that's more interesting to me than just regular shows, even though I like The Walking Dead.

I've been around a lot longer than most rappers stay around. So I don't feel like, I haven't made too many career mistakes.

As a husband, I'm a true partner. I don't believe one person should have dominance over another.

Whatever happened in the neighborhood. That's what I was rapping about. And that sparked people's interest. And that's what kind of put me on that path.

I won't do anything for money. I won't compromise my manhood.

People are still tied to their hoods, and it's usually not the artist, it's usually the friends and instigators who get it popping.

The way I grew up and the neighborhood I come from, when you know somebody's beating you and you still let it happen, then you're a victim. You're no longer a man when you know something is happening and you don't stand up. So that's just how we raised.

You learn that Hollywood has its own rules, sometimes. And it's tricky, and sometimes you can't see what's coming around the corner.

Cool people still have a hard time showing what they got in Hollywood.

It's always been jewelry, clothes, appearance. Those are things that compete with the car. But the car is the ultimate. Get that car right and it doesn't matter what you got on or what you wear once you step out of that car.

You become a writer on a television show, and you see yourself doing bigger and better things, you don't wait till they tell you, "Here's the way to do bigger and better things," you start writing. You start writing that material that you might be doing off to the side. Nobody's going to be paying you for that, but it could turn into something big.

While I had done the movies through Revolution Studios, we own the sitcom. It was a situation where, once the team was assembled, I knew we could create something really, really good.

I can't really attribute my success onscreen to any formula and suggest you "do this or that" to make it as an actor.

[Make a sitcom] was really the idea of Executive Producer Joe Roth who owned the property over at Revolution Studios and said he was thinking about taking it to TV. And after he said that he already had [writer/director] Ali Leroi on board, and that he was going after Terry Crews, to me it was a no-brainer. I said, "Let's put this together!"

I like to deal with things I heard about, ... People are always getting their house broken into around the holidays. That's when the crime rate goes up.

I hope everything works in our favor. The show ["Are We There Yet?"] is cool. It's family fare. We ain't aiming at the cheap seats. Instead, we're making something with a broad appeal that people of any color or creed and from all walks of life can enjoy and maybe learn something from.

We come from the days when rap used to agitate the mainstream. Now it's more buddy-buddy. That doesn't sit well with me. So what we need is [a bit more] street politics, bringing up issues, agitating you a little bit. And nothing can agitate you more now than a terrorist threat.

I could do an interview or just as well not do one. It's not like I'm looking for extra publicity.

I wanted to go in a different direction, artistically. But having somebody like Terry[Crews] in it was your ace in the hole. That makes it very strong, so I definitely had to jump in with both feet.

As far as producing, once we started shooting, I soon realized where the critical decisions about the movies were really being made, and it wasn't on the set. They were being made in the production meetings. That's where producing a movie happens. And that's where I wanted to be. I didn't just want to be a piece, a pawn being played. I wanted to take part in the creative process, and that's how I sort of got introduced to the idea.

We don't do movies for the industry. We do movies for the fans, for the people. If the industry give you a trophy or not, or pat you on the back or not, it's nice, but it's not something you should dwell on.

You can't boycott something you never went to anyway,so why put energy into it?

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

My problem is that I never get through the whole book. I skim through this one, that one, and then the other one.

I don't listen to nothing while I'm in the studio, because I don't want to be influenced by anybody else.

I think hip-hop has changed. When I first came out, hip-hop was more of a kind of way to learn about new places, new things. What are kids doing on the East coast, what are kids doing here. Then it left that and is like a party mode. I think it's going back to people wanting to get messages and wanting to learn things from the music.

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

You know it ain't no stoppin' All the doggs I'm droppin' It's Friday night, so everything is poppin.

Do I gotta go sell me a whole lotta crack for decent shelter and clothes on my back?

You the devil in drag. You can burn your cross, Well, I'll burn your flag...

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

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.

When my nine goes buck, it will bust your head like a watermelon dropping 12 stories up.

Brothers keep asking Ice Cube, 'Yo, when will you bust?' They surround me and make a big fuss

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

America eats its youth like reptiles...Educat e yourself before they dumb you down.

I remember wishing there was snow in L.A. And how jealous we used to get of those Christmas specials with kids playing in the snow.

For my birthday, buy me a politician!

There's a lot of talent in South Central L.A., in Compton and Long Beach and Watts, and the city north of Pico pretty much sits back and waits for that talent to emerge and then steps in.

Cinderella hoein' for the fellas, Mr. Roger was getting kind of jealous.

Never question the size of Ice Cube's balls!

Go down to the corner store and beat the Jap up, clean all the crap up.

We'll burn your store right down to a crisp.

Nobody I know got killed in South Central LA. Today was a good day.

I've never really taken myself too serious. That's everybody else, listening to the music or whatever. I've always said what I've felt, said what I thought was right, but I've always had a comedic bone.

I'm not sure if music got a future. We have all these electronic ways to download and steal music and get music, but there's no money in makin' music.

Sometimes guys just want the girl and want to drop the kids off anywhere they can. Guys it’s a package. You like a woman, she’s got kids, it’s a package. You can’t just go in one-sided. It’s pretty cool.

A lot of movies will deliver on the promotion but when you go see them, everything you laughed at was in the trailer.

I think rap music is the sole reason for a lot of black acceptance in pop culture; because the music is very popular, it gets our image out in other ways than in movies.

Hollywood is obsessed with police stories.

When you have a good movie, it's hard to categorize it. It's everything. It makes you laugh, makes you cry and makes you think.

To me, it's my job not to laugh, no matter what's said. By the time we shoot, I'm ready for all that's coming. I probably do most of my breaking in rehearsals, when I know that I can.

I know I ain't too old. I always think of my fans about 10 years older and 10 years younger than me.

If you really think back to the culture or just black America before rap music took off, New York could have been Paris.

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.

With comedies, I like to be a producer, because comedies can get corny and go off track real fast.

Everybody that wants to be successful should always be careful of what you wish for. A lot of artists and entertainers want to put the genie back in the bottle and wish they could go back to being what they were.

I don't do much cooking, but one of my favorite dishes to eat is my wife's macaroni and cheese.

I always tell people that if you gave me a pen and a piece of paper when I was a teenager and said, "Write out how you'd like your career to go," I would have probably short changed myself compared to what it's been for real. I'm just extremely excited about what I've accomplished.

Most actors have to sit by the phone and wait for somebody to call them up to audition and stuff. I don't think I can exist in Hollywood just on that. I think I need to be proactive and making sure that things I really want to do are being developed to the point where somebody wants to make them.

You can measure films on box office success, or people lovin' the movie whenever they see it. That's what I measure my movies on. How much people love these movies after they get a chance to see them, no matter how they get a chance to see them.

I'm a good counter comedian. I can just work it off with looks, or have something crazy to say back. That works for me.