Quotes by Eminem

It'd be stupid for me to sit here and say that there aren't kids who took up to me, but my responsibility is not to them. I'm not a baby sitter.
– Eminem
A lot of my rhymes are just to get chuckles out of people. Anybody with half a brain is going to be able to tell when I’m joking and when I’m serious.
– Eminem
A lot of truth is said in jest.
– Eminem
All my life I've been dealing with my race because of where I grew up and being in the rap game. I'm at a boiling point. Anybody who pulls the race card is getting it right back in their face.
– Eminem
Anybody with a sense of humor is going to put on my album and laugh from beginning to end.
– Eminem
Before I was famous, when I was just working in Gilbert's Lodge, everything was moving in slow motion.
– Eminem
Dealing with backstabbers, there was one thing I learned. They're only powerful when you got your back turned.
– Eminem
Don't do drugs; don't have unprotected sex; don't be violent. Leave that to me.
– Eminem
Fame hit me like a ton of bricks.
– Eminem
I always wished for this, but it's almost turning into more of a nightmare than a dream.
– Eminem
I am whatever you say I am; if I wasn't, then why would you say I am.
– Eminem
I come from Detroit where it's rough and I'm not a smooth talker.
– Eminem
I don’t like rap anyways, I’m just trying to get my porno career started.
– Eminem
I don’t like to give the sob story: growing up in a single-parent home, never knew my father, my mother never worked, and when friends came over, I’d hide the welfare cheese. Yo, I failed ninth grade three times, but I don’t think it was necessarily ’cause I’m stupid. I didn’t go to school. I couldn’t deal.
– Eminem
I don't hate women, they just sometimes make me mad.
– Eminem
I felt like it's my time to shine, I have to rip this. At that time, I felt that it was a life or death situation.
– Eminem
I grew up listening to 2 Live Crew and N.W.A. and I never went out and shot nobody.
– Eminem
I had nothing to lose, but something to gain.
– Eminem
I might talk about killing people, but that doesn't mean I do it.
– Eminem
I need drama in my life to keep making music.
– Eminem
I think my first album opened a lot of doors for me to push the freedom of speech to the limit.
– Eminem
I try not to look at it that way. Being white. I don't wake up every day and look in the mirror, "Oh. I'm white."
– Eminem
I'd go to, like, six different schools in one year. We were on welfare, and my mom never ever worked.
– Eminem
If there's not drama and negativity in my life, all my songs will be really wack and boring or something.
– Eminem
I'm stupid, I'm ugly, I'm dumb, I smell. Did I mention I'm stupid?
– Eminem
It doesn't exactly feel like a shock, but it's all new to me, and I'm taking it in as it comes.
– Eminem
It sometimes feels like a strange movie, you know, it's all so weird that sometimes I wonder if it is really happening.
– Eminem
Love is just a word, but you bring it definition.
– Eminem
My family has never been there for me. They expect things because we’re blood.
– Eminem
My father? I never knew him. Never even seen a picture of him.
– Eminem
My only scheme was to be a rapper.
– Eminem
Never take Ecstasy, beer, Bacardi, weed, Pepto Bismol, Vivarin, Tums, Tagamet HB, Xanax, and Valium in the same day. It makes it difficult to sleep at night.
– Eminem
Sometimes I’m real cool, but sometimes I could be a real asshole. I think everyone is like that.
– Eminem
Sometimes you just gotta let shit go and say to "hell with it" and move on.
– Eminem
Somewhere deep down there's a decent man in me, he just can't be found.
– Eminem
There was a while when I was feeling like, "Damn, if I'd just been born black, I would not have to go through all this."
– Eminem
These times are so hard, and they're getting even harder.
– Eminem
They say music can alter moods and talk to you, but can it load a gun for you and cock it too? Well if it can, then the next time you assault a dude just tell the judge it was my fault, and i'll get sued.
– Eminem
To the people I forgot: You weren't on my mind for some reason and you probably don't deserve any thanks anyway.
– Eminem
We just kept moving back and forth because my mother never had a job. We kept getting kicked out of every house we were in. I believe six months was the longest we ever lived in a house.
– Eminem
When I say I'll murder my baby's mother, maybe I wanted to, but I didn't. Anybody who takes it literally is ten times sicker than I am.
– Eminem
Why is it so hard for people to believe that white people are poor? I wouldn't say I lived in a ghetto, I'd say I lived in the 'hood. The same friends I had back then are the same people on tour with me now.
– Eminem
Yeah, I did see where the people dissing me were coming from. But, it's like, anything that happened in the past between black and white, I can't really speak on it, because I wasn't there. I don't feel like me being born the color I am makes me any less of a person.
– Eminem
You’ve got enemies? Good. That means you actually stood up for something in your life.
– Eminem
Aside from watching my girl grow, my ultimate dream is to be good at what I am, be respected and grow up.
– Eminem
Slim Shady is just the evil thoughts that come into my head. Things I shouldn't be thinking about.
– Eminem
I do say things that I think will shock people. But I don't do things to shock people. I'm not trying to be the next Tupac, but I don't know how long I'm going to be on this planet. So while I'm here, I might as well make the most of it.
– Eminem
Though I'm not the first king of controversy, I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley, to do Black Music so selfishly and use it to get myself wealthy.
– Eminem
Saving Private Ryan was probably the illest, sickest movie I've ever watched, and I didn't see anybody criticizing that one for violence.
– Eminem
I had this whole Slim Shady concept of being two different people, having two different sides of me. One of them I was trying to let go, and I looked at the mirror and smashed it. That was the whole intro of the Slim Shady EP. Slim Shady was coming to haunt me, was coming to haunt Eminem.
– Eminem
You can't control who likes you. If I got Backstreet Boy fans what am I supposed to do? Turn them away? Whoever likes my stuff, likes my stuff but just know Slim Shady is hip hop, I grew up on hip hop, it's the music I love and it's the music I respect. I respect the culture...that's me
– Eminem
I don't have to say anything to my fans about my music and try to explain it, because they get it, and that's why they are fans, do you know what I mean?
– Eminem
You're not going to say anything about me that I'm not going to say about myself. There's so many things that I think about myself if someone really wanted to get at me, they could say this and this and this. So I'm going to say it before they can. It's the best policy for me.
– Eminem
You know, fame is a funny thing, man, especially, you know, actors, musicians, rappers, rock singers, it's kind of a lifestyle and it's easy to get caught up in it - you go to bars, you go to clubs, everyone's doing a certain thing... It's tough.
– Eminem
Well, I'm working all the time to stay out of trouble!
– Eminem
Ultimately, who you choose to be in a relationship with and what you do in your bedroom is your business.
– Eminem
Trust is hard to come by. That's why my circle is small and tight. I'm kind of funny about making new friends.
– Eminem
The truth is you don't know what is going to happen tomorrow. Life is a crazy ride, and nothing is guaranteed.
– Eminem
The kids are old enough now - I just want to let them be kids. I don't want to comment on them too much. They're at an age where I just want to let them be kids.
– Eminem
The details surrounding both my marriage and subsequent filing for divorce are private, and I had hoped to keep them that way for the sake of my family.
– Eminem
Sometimes I feel like rap music is almost the key to stopping racism.
– Eminem
Say there's a white kid who lives in a nice home, goes to an all-white school, and is pretty much having everything handed to him on a platter - for him to pick up a rap tape is incredible to me, because what that's saying is that he's living a fantasy life of rebellion.
– Eminem
Personally, I just think rap music is the best thing out there, period. If you look at my deck in my car radio, you're always going to find a hip-hop tape that's all I buy, that's all I live, that's all I listen to, that's all I love.
– Eminem
People can try to reinvent themselves. I don't think you can really change who you are, though, because who you are is pretty much where you came from and what you've done up to now.
– Eminem
Music is so therapeutic for me that if I can't get it out, I start feeling bad about myself - a lot of self-loathing.
– Eminem
It feels good to have your work respected again.
– Eminem
If people take anything from my music, it should be motivation to know that anything is possible as long as you keep working at it and don't back down.
– Eminem
I've accomplished enough with the music that I haven't had to go out there and do other things to over-saturate.
– Eminem
I try to treat all the money I'm making like it's the last time I'm going to make it.
– Eminem
I say what I want to say and do what I want to do. There's no in between. People will either love you for it or hate you for it.
– Eminem
I love the attention but I don't like too much of it.
– Eminem
I don't think I've ever read poetry, ever.
– Eminem
I didn't have nothin' going for me... school, home... until I found something I loved, which was music, and that changed everything.
– Eminem
Honestly, I'd love to be remembered as one of the best to ever pick up a mic, but if I'm doing my part to lessen some racial tension I feel good about what I'm doing.
– Eminem
Anything I've ever said, I certainly was feeling at the time.
– Eminem
A lot of the problems I had with fame I was bringing on myself. A lot of self-loathing, a lot of woe-is-me. Now I'm learning to see the positive side of things, instead of, like, 'I can't go to Kmart. I can't take my kids to the haunted house.'
– Eminem