“Electing a black man named Barack Obama President in the same country that elected George W. Bush - twice! - is as far-fetched as a hustler from Marcy performing at that President's inauguration. But it happened.”

“An outgoing president nearly always defines the next elections, Axelrod wrote, and people almost never seek a replica - certainly not after the presidency of George W. Bush.”

“I'm a hustler, baby; I sell water to a well!”

“Barack Obama is an even worse president than George W. Bush, because an evil bastard who knows what he's doing is far more dangerous than an evil bastard who doesn't have a clue.”

“Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk. Martin Luther King walked so Obama could run. Obama's running so we all can fly.”

“My life after childhood has two main stories: the story of the hustler and the story of the rapper, and the two overlap as much as they diverge. I was on the streets for more than half of my life from the time I was thirteen years old. People sometimes say that now I'm so far away from that life - now that I've got businesses and Grammys and magazine covers - that I have no right to rap about it. But how distant is the story of your own life ever going to be? The feelings I had during that part of my life were burned into me like a brand. It was life during wartime.”

“The Pentagon still has not given a name to the Iraqi war. Somehow 'Operation Re-elect Bush' doesn't seem to be popular. ”