The Tao of Wu — The RZA w/ Chris Norris

"Chili-Wop became an ally, a protector in a violent world. Finally, after I'd lived there for nearly two years, he told me something. 'When y'all first moved in, I robbed your house, maaan. I never knew you was gonna be a cool family.' ... That's just one hood lesson: Your allies can arrive as enemies, blessings as a curse." (p. 3)

"How can you defame mud when such a beautiful flower grows from it?" (p. 4)

"Just as you must come through a woman's womb to attain physical birth, so must you come through Wisdom to achieve mental birth. And like childbirth, Wisdom often comes with pain." (p. 7)

"I advise everyone to find an island in this life. Find a place where this culture can't take energy away from you, sap your will and originality. Since anything physical can be mental, that island can be your home. Turn off the electromagnetic waves being forced upon you, the countless invisible forces coming at you all the time." (p. 18)

[RZA traveled to a small village in West Africa to visit Ghostface Killah there. To get there, he had to fly into the city of Cotonou, Benin. People there saw that he was dressed like a rap star, so...] "In the city, just about everyone I met had his hand out — either asking for something or trying to sell me something. When we got to the village, everyone had his hand out in offering — either something to eat, or directions, or some kind of help. They had less but they were offering more." (p. 28)

"The personal characteristics of great messengers are usually irrelevant. For instance, they say that Martin Luther King Jr. was a fornicator. Does it matter? Do you believe the messenger or his message? I believe in the message. That's why when I read certain books or see certain films, I skip over the names: Forget who said it if it's truth." (p. 33)

"I ask people what piece they are on the chessboard. And some people say 'I'm the king' or 'I'm the knight.' And then they ask me what piece I am, and I say, 'I'm no piece. I take the position of God.'" (p. 33)

"I think most of my approach to life has been like that, to find order in chaos, to be in the middle of a bunch of things happening at the same time, but find focus. I strive to be like the sun sitting in the middle of the solar system with all the planets spinning around it — millions of things going on. It's just sitting there being the sun, but exerting gravitational effect on everything. I think man should look at himself that way." (p. 48)

"An enlightened man sees that there actually are no numbers. It's all a circle. On a number line, the numbers left of zero head off to negative infinity and the ones right of zero head off to positive infinity. But it's infinity either way." (p. 62)

"They say there's a dark spot in your heart, a tiny black vacuum, that's the size of the tip of a needle. I believe that tiny space is where God is located inside you. That tiny dark spot is a piece of space trapped in our body, something that connects us to the universe and one another." (p. 68)

"Our culture is programming its children to join the 85 percent, to be robots, to have no knowledge of self. Today, being one of the 85 percent might mean being married in the suburbs with 2.5 kids and 3 cars, spending your days eating prepackaged food, and talking about ten-year-old sitcoms. It might mean chasing Escalades, Rolexes, and power in a corporation that will betray you. It might mean simply accepting everything you see without question. Today, we need some form of the Five Percent." (p. 94)

"You are a 64-track recording — the tracks are always there, they're always with you. Sometimes the harsh tracks are cranked up and the rest are rolled down to zero. Other times the sweet tracks are high and the darkness is low. But it's all you." (p. 117)