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

Throughout my career, I fed off the fuel of people not being able to understand me.
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

When ‘Paul’s Boutique’ came out, I was one of the fans that didn’t get it.
Eminem

Everybody has goals, aspirations or whatever, and everybody has been at a point in their life where nobody believed in them.
Eminem

Somewhere deep down there’s a decent man in me, he just can’t be found.
Eminem

It’d be stupid for me to sit here and say that there aren’t kids who look up to me, but my responsibility is not to them. I’m not a baby sitter.
Eminem

Before I was famous, when I was just working in Gilbert’s Lodge, everything was moving in slow motion.
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

Top 10
Eminem
QUOTES
I am who I am and I say what I think. I’m not putting a face on for the record.
Eminem

I come from Detroit where it’s rough and I’m not a smooth talker.
Eminem

I need drama in my life to keep making music.
Eminem

I want to solidify as an artist and show that as I grow as a person and make mistakes and learn from them, I’m going to grow artistically.
Eminem

I was poor white trash, no glitter, no glamour, but I’m not ashamed of anything.
Eminem

I’d go to, like, six different schools in one year. We were on welfare, and my mom never ever worked.
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

My only scheme was to be a rapper.
Eminem

My thing is this; if I’m sick enough to think it, then I’m sick enough to say it.
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

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

Sometimes I feel like rap music is almost the key to stopping racism.
Eminem

When you’re a little kid, you don’t see color, and the fact that my friends were black never crossed my mind. It never became an issue until I was a teenager and started trying to rap.
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

I don’t hate women – they just sometimes make me mad.
Eminem

A lot of truth is said in jest.
Eminem

These times are so hard, and they’re getting even harder.
Eminem

My father? I never knew him. Never even seen a picture of him.
Eminem

I might talk about killing people, but that doesn’t mean I do it.
Eminem

I’m stupid, I’m ugly, I’m dumb, I smell. Did I mention I’m stupid?
Eminem

I am whatever you say I am; if I wasn’t, then why would you say I am.
Eminem

Anybody with a sense of humor is going to put on my album and laugh from beginning to end.
Eminem

I think my first album opened a lot of doors for me to push the freedom of speech to the limit.
Eminem

If there’s not drama and negativity in my life, all my songs will be really wack and boring or something.
Eminem

The truth is you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. Life is a crazy ride, and nothing is guaranteed.
Eminem

Dealing with backstabbers, there was one thing I learned. They’re only powerful when you got your back turned.
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

Eminem Music Quotes
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

Guns are bad, I tell you.
Eminem

Ultimately, who you choose to be in a relationship with and what you do in your bedroom is your business.
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

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 didn’t have nothin’ going for me… school, home… until I found something I loved, which was music, and that changed everything.
Eminem

I was a smart kid, but I hated school.
Eminem

I want to keep making records as long as I can, but I don’t know how long you can be taken seriously in rap.
Eminem

The album requires a certain focus of mine that I can’t really explain – let’s just say it’s all I can really do while I’m doing it.
Eminem

Anything I’ve ever said, I certainly was feeling at the time.
Eminem

My overall look on things is a lot more mature than it used to be.
Eminem

Now that I understand that I’m an addict, I definitely have compassion for my mother. I get it.
Eminem

Rap was my drug.
Eminem

I don’t think I’ve ever read poetry, ever.
Eminem

I’m not really book-smart.
Eminem

I try to treat all the money I’m making like it’s the last time I’m going to make it.
Eminem

Touring is hard on the body.
Eminem

It feels good to have your work respected again.
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

It creeps me out sometimes to think of the person I was. I was a terrible person. I was mean to people.
Eminem

I have a slight bit of OCD, I think. I’m not walking around flipping light switches. But when I say I’m going to do something, I have to do it.
Eminem

I’m very much a creature of habit.
Eminem

Sporadic thoughts will pop into my head and I’ll have to go write something down, and the next thing you know I’ve written a whole song in an hour.
Eminem

Certainly I’m not going to sit on the Internet all day and read what Sam from Iowa is saying about me. But I’m a sponge. I’ve always been a sponge.
Eminem

I don’t even know how to speak up for myself, because I don’t really have a father who would give me the confidence or advice.
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

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

I realized, ‘Yo, I can’t do anything in moderation. I don’t know how.’
Eminem

I don’t think I ever thought of myself as Superman. But there were people who thought of me that way, and maybe I believed them a little.
Eminem

You know, not to sound corny or nuthin’, but I felt like a fighter comin’ up, man. I felt like, you know, I’m being attacked for this reason or that reason, and I gotta fight my way through this.
Eminem

Hip hop has always been braggin’ and boasting and ‘I’m better at you than this’ and ‘I’m better at you than that.’
Eminem

If you’re the parent, be a parent. You know what I mean? I’m a parent. I have daughters.
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

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

Nobody likes to fail. I want to succeed in everything I do, which isn’t much. But the things that I’m really passionate about, if I fail at those, if I’m not successful, what do I have?
Eminem

Honestly, I never really put the mic down.
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

Well, I’m working all the time to stay out of trouble!
Eminem

Hip-hop is ever changing but you’ll always have the pack. And you’ll always have those people who are separated from the pack.
Eminem

The writing process, the way I go about it is I do whatever the beat feels like, whatever the beat is telling me to do. Usually when the beat comes on, I think of a hook or the subject I want to rap about almost instantly. Within four, eight bars of it playing I’m just like, ‘Oh, OK. This is what I wanna do’.
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 love the attention but I don’t like too much of it.
Eminem

I feel like a spoilt rapper. I get to pick and choose everything.
Eminem

I always felt that if I was going to do a movie, I wanted it to be authentic.
Eminem

I’ve been running a lot, taking care of myself.
Eminem

It’s just hard to meet new people, in my position.
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

I need to keep working on myself for a while.
Eminem

I didn’t just invent saying offensive things.
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

My family has never been there for me. They expect things because we’re blood.
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

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

I always say this about my music, and music in general: Music is like a time capsule. Each album reflects what I’m going through or what’s going on in my life at that moment.
Eminem

Nothing on ‘Relapse’ and very little on ‘Recovery’ was produced by me.
Eminem

I stopped watching TV because of ‘The Wire.’ Like, ‘The Wire’ ruined everything for me because I don’t even want to watch anything else now.
Eminem

Hip-hop saved my life, man. It’s the only thing I’ve ever been even decent at. I don’t know how to do anything else.
Eminem

Being a student of hip-hop in general, you take technical aspects from places. You may take a rhyme pattern or flow from Big Daddy Kane or Kool G Rap.
Eminem

I don’t think I’ve ever read poetry, ever. I’m not really book-smart.
Eminem

When Bugs Bunny walks into rehab, people are going to turn and look. People at rehab were stealing my hats and pens and notebooks and asking for autographs. I couldn’t concentrate on my problem.
Eminem

I always try to be smart. I try to treat all the money I’m making like it’s the last time I’m going to make it.
Eminem

As for my stuff, I’m just doing guest verses for other people’s records. I try to stay recording, because if I don’t, I get rusty.
Eminem

I was going to McDonald’s and Taco Bell every day. The kids behind the counter knew me – it wouldn’t even faze them. Or I’d sit up at Denny’s or Big Boy and just eat by myself. It was sad. I got so heavy that people started to not recognize me.
Eminem

There was certainly, like, a rebellious, like, youthful rage in me. And there was also the fact of no getting away from fact that I am white, and you know, this is predominantly black music, you know.
Eminem

I don’t know if I ever feel totally great about a record when I put it out. With every record that I put out, someone has literally got to come pry it from me because when I listen to my own music, I just hear flaws in it.
Eminem

It’s kind of like a challenge to myself to be able to hear somebody else’s hook and kind of interpret the words. Because my own hooks, I already know what I mean when I write them.
Eminem

Five or six songs leaked from the original version of ‘Encore.’ So I had to go in and make new songs to replace them.
Eminem

I don’t even know how to speak up for myself, because I don’t really have a father who would give me the confidence or advice. And if you’re always the new kid, you never get a chance to adapt, so your confidence is just zilch.
Eminem

I felt like I had a really bad case of writer’s block… 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

The emotions in a song – the anger, aggression – have got to be legitimate.
Eminem