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" Growing up in New York, there are a lot of tenement buildings and a lot of projects. You don't leave your projects too much. The laundry's there. The grocery store is there. Everything takes place right there. When I got knowledge of myself and thought about moving around the city, hip-hop was something that helped me. "

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" The director can be a dictator, but it's not wise to be. You have to choose the days to be a dictator and the days to deal with diplomacy and democracy. Every great leader should know that, even a dictator. Tyrants get overthrown. "

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" I'm grateful for what I've accomplished. I'm grateful for anyone who thinks I accomplished something and says, 'Well he did this; he did that.' "

" The history of black America was from slavery, oppression, civil rights, and you felt kind of isolated as an entity in our country. "

" 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. "

" Being black in America - especially as I was growing up - the feeling of oppression, the feeling of being outcast, the feeling of not having a voice was part of my life. "

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" I got a bad habit of creating. "

" The spaghetti Western genre is definitely one of favorites. "

" The black community has for a long time been a part of the Hollywood community, and of course we would love to have a more proportionate ratio of films that tell our stories. "

" Every time I make a new album, I get better and better. "

" I didn't learn black history in school. I had to go find Malcolm X books. "

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" That movie 'Hellraiser 2' - to me, that was the most evilest display of evil I've ever seen. I watched that movie ten times because I couldn't believe that each character became more evil than the other. "

" So I was about 19 when I got my first SP-1200, and on that SP-1200, I made 'Bring The Pain' and a few other classic Wu joints. "

" The whole first 100 Wu-Tang songs was made on an ASR-10. "

" I'm me, and the me that's me is me and is going to continue to be me, and it's always reaching and growing. "

" I actually have eyes that irritate easily, so I wear the glasses to keep stuff out of my eyes. If you see me in shades indoors, you might be like, 'RZA is wearing shades inside. What the hell is going on?' I'm protecting my eyes, and I'm looking cool. "

" If you let a man that you love or anybody - man, woman or child that you love - sit there and destroy themselves in front of you, you're neglecting them. "

" 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 wrote a big animation scene for 'Iron Fists,' but we couldn't afford all that. "

" To me, Wu-Tang is beyond Wu-Tang Clan... It's just like, hip-hop is beyond Grandmaster Flash, but Grandmaster Flash was one of the first guys to hit those turntables like that. The same thing with Wu-Tang. You'll see the difference in hip-hop from the moment we came in to before we came in. We changed it. We changed the whole structure. "

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" 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? "

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" You don't 'practice' martial arts; it's more like a way of life. "

" I will keep a Bible or Koran on me at all times - the Bible I can actually carry on my phone, and any hotel you go to has a Bible, but the Koran is harder. I keep a physical Koran in my guitar case and put it on the table in hotel rooms so after a day's work, I can read a few verses. "

Rza

Phone

Guitar

" I don't have the same respect for time as most people. I take that extra day to think about it. "

" I'm focused on creating art and whichever outlet it can get out in. "

" I thought about doing '36 Chambers' on Broadway. "

" Art - the beautiful thing about art, from my standpoint, is that it has no discrimination. "

" A servant sometimes need to be served. "

" One of my illest villains was the Butcher from 'Gangs of New York,' Daniel Day-Lewis. "

" Wu-Tang Clan's first album, '36 Chambers,' there wasn't a lot of money given to make that album. "

" I stopped with the red meat, let go of turkey and chicken, and then I held onto fish. When we finished 'Wu-Tang Forever,' I felt like I evolved and completely dived into veganism. "