Tupac Shakur Quotes

The guns are turning away from Europe and Russia and Iran and Iraq and they're turning to us.

If you can make it through the night, there's a brighter day.

"My inspiration for writing music is like Don McLean did when he did "American Pie" or "Vincent". Lorraine Hansberry with "A Raisin in the Sun". Like Shakespeare when he does his thing, like deep stories, raw human needs.

I'm trying to think of a good analogy. It's like, you've got the Vietnam War, and because you had reporters showing us pictures of the war at home, that's what made the war end, or that shit would have lasted longer. If no one knew what was going on we would have thought they were just dying valiantly in some beautiful way. But because we saw the horror, that's what made us stop the war.

So I thought, that's what I'm going to do as an artist, as a rapper. I'm gonna show the most graphic details of what I see in my community and hopefully they'll stop it quick.

I've seen all of that — the crack babies, what we had to go through, losing everything, being poor, and getting beat down. All of that. Being the person I am, I said no no no no. I'm changing this."

I can't explain why I shine and no one else shines. I think everybody shines in different things.

Everybody against me. Why? Why me? I have not brought violence to you. I have not brought Thug Life to America. I didn't create Thug Life. I diagnosed it.

The reason I sell 6 million records, the reason I could go to jail and come out without a scratch, the reason I can walk around, the reason I am who I am today is because I can look directly in to my face and find my soul, it's there, it's not sold, i didn't sell it, it's still within me, I still feel it, my heart is still connected to my body.

Can one come 2 conclusions
Before the question is conceived?

where my culture I'm told holds no significance
I'll wither and die in ignorance
But my inner eye can c a race
who reigned as kings in another place

Marlon Brando is not a gangster-actor, he's an actor. Axl Rose and them are not gangster rock-and-rollers, they're rock-and-rollers right. So I'm a rapper, this is what I do. I'm an artist.

i will live by the gun and die by the gun

Believe in yourself and don't let nobody stopping you from doing what you gotta do, you gotta have faith. If you can't find faith in the world, find faith in God, find faith in yourself but you gotta have faith.

Trust nobody, TRUST NO BODY.

Can one come 2 conclusions,
Before the question is conceived?

In July 1993, a jury convicted Howard of capital murder and sentenced him to death. The next day, Linda Sue Davidson moved forward with a lawsuit against 2Pac, Time Warner, and Interscope Records. She didn’t believe that 2Pacalypse Now merited First Amendment protection, alleging that the music was obscene, contained what she called “fighting words,” defamed officers like her husband, and incited imminent illegal conduct in individuals like Howard. More specifically, 2Pac’s music ultimately led to her husband’s demise. “Our goal is to punish Time Warner and wake up the executives who run the music business,” said Jim Cole, the attorney representing Linda Sue Davidson. “This suit isn’t just about some storyteller spouting militant rhetoric here. 2Pac is dangerously serious. This suit is about stopping giant corporations from shamelessly making money off music designed to incite impressionable young men to shoot and kill cops like Bill.”

There's gon' be some stuff you gon' see
that's gon' make it hard to smile in the future.
But through whatever you see,
through all the rain and the pain,
you gotta keep your sense of humor.
You gotta be able to smile through all this bullshit.
Remember that.