B.I.G.: "I'm a nice guy, but the fear keeps everybody on their toes. People sometimes mistake sweetness for weakness. You never want anyone to know everything about you. It makes you too easy to classify."

B.I.G.: "I can't even see me wasting my time or my talent to disrespect another black man."

B.I.G.: "I'm basically different things to different people. If it's a guy, I'm-a probably have my guard up because it's a street rule that when men come around that I don't know, I just immediately throw shade on them. But I don't associate with fellas all that much; if it's a girl - a beautiful girl - I be nice."

B.I.G.: "Every true hustler knows that you cannot hustle forever. You will go to jail eventually."

B.I.G.: "When you start making a whole lot of money and you start living too fast, it's up to you to slow yourself down. You can't be getting drunk, smoking two or three ounces of weed a day, and [having sex] with all these different females. Something's bound to happen."

B.I.G.: "If I grew up in some suburb, I'd come out with a song about potholes in my lawn."

B.I.G.: "How real can your music be if you wake up in the morning hearing birds and crickets? I never hear birds when I wake up. Just a lot of construction work, the smell of Chinese takeout, children screaming, and everybody knocking a different track from 'Ready to Die' as they pass down the street."

B.I.G.: "I can't never stop nobody, can't knock nobody hustle."

B.I.G.: "Back in third grade, they used to say, 'Take whatever talent you have and think of something you can do with it.' I liked to draw, but what could I do with it? Maybe I could be an art dealer - nah, can't see myself doing that. Maybe I could do commercial arts?"

B.I.G.: "Please don't hate me because I'm beautiful."

B.I.G.: "Basically, I wake up at nine o'clock in the morning, go to different record stores, go to the studio, think up different ideas for songs. Just workin'."

B.I.G.: "I hold grudges, but I can't hate nobody; that's not my nature."

B.I.G.: "I'm not a security-type person, I don't want to have bodyguards around me. I'm not into all that. Now we just chill in the house. There are a lot of times when we want to go out, but we just don't."

B.I.G.: "I definitely wouldn't wish death on anyone."

B.I.G.: "I cleaned up my act, and I made this rap thing work for me. I thought people would respect me for that. But instead, it's, 'Oh, he's sold all these records, and now he thinks he's all that.'"