Top 40 Nelly Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Hip-hop is more than music, it’s a culture. It’s bigger than hit songs.”

— Nelly

2. “Two is not a winner, and three nobody remembers. What does it take to be number one?”

— Nelly

3. “I don’t believe in luck. I believe everything happens for a reason.”

— Nelly

4. “I’m a workaholic because I don’t want to not work. When you come from basically nothing and you have so much good things happening for you sometimes you have to sacrifice.”

— Nelly

5. “I’m a sucker for corn rows and manicured toes.”

— Nelly

6. “Your own destiny, create your own recipe.”

— Nelly

7. “My grammar be’s ebonics, gin tonics, and chronic.”

— Nelly

8. “Sometimes a relationship is what falls cause it’s not fair that, that person has to fit inside your life or you have to fit inside that person’s life.”

— Nelly

9. “Believe it or not, I swear I’m just a human being.”

— Nelly

10. “I try not to name too many labels – not because it’s not cool, but because it starts getting political.”

— Nelly

11. “A great body is a gift you give yourself.”

— Nelly

12. “Don’t stop ever loving me, you can always smoke with me.”

— Nelly

13. “Proceed to not smoke weed around the seed.”

— Nelly

14. “I can see the greed and envy in your eyes.”

— Nelly

15. “You always get that energy, you just want to be heard, to go out, do your thing and show people that we have just as much talent here as everywhere else.”

— Nelly

16. “If we were born knowing everything, what would we do with all this time on this earth?”

— Nelly

17. “I’m 27. I feel like I get it. I’m OK with being sexy if I feel like it. Some days I’m brainy, some days I’m funny, some days I’m sexy, and sometimes, I just want to dance.”

— Nelly

18. “Gotta get myself a million, gonna turn that into a billion.”

— Nelly

19. “Smoke that herb and clear your mind.”

— Nelly

20. “I remember really bonding with the first generation kids, the Chinese Canadian kids, and in high school bonding with the Latin kids and the East Indian kids. It was very interesting because it made me open to lots of musical sounds.”

— Nelly

21. “Wouldn’t have no knowledge of wealth, without no knowledge of self.”

— Nelly

22. “Nobody living average, everybody jang-a-lang. Nobody living savage, everybody got change.”

— Nelly

23. “Be a mistress to none, but all good to some.”

— Nelly

24. “Bewitched is half of everything.”

— Nelly

25. “So many people appreciate what you’ve done, the doors you’ve opened, but some people realise they’re not going to be able to make as much money as they thought possible when you first started.”

— Nelly

26. “Having the balance of a work life and a family life has been so good for me.”

— Nelly

27. “I’m liver than Jay, Davy, and Kathy and Regis, been on more MTV shows than Butthead and Beavis.”

— Nelly

28. “My whole staff love to laugh and count the money. On the couch, hands in our pants like Al Bundy.”

— Nelly

29. “Some people actually said I fell off at Nellyville cause I didn’t sell as many as Country Grammar. I’m like are you kidding me? Sweat and Suit? I broke history, I was the first rapper to have 1st and 2nd album at the same time ever on billboard.”

— Nelly

30. “Guys don’t really care, they just want to get the clothes off.”

— Nelly

31. “My ultimate goal and our ultimate goal is to be individuals, to sustain what we been able to sustain.”

— Nelly

32. “Imagine blocks and blocks of no cocaine, blocks with no gun play.”

— Nelly

33. “Sometimes as an artist when things come easy to you, you look for other avenues that are more challenging to you and you try to walk those lanes.”

— Nelly

34. “I never was the battle rapper. That was never my thing. I always felt like it’s enough room for everybody to do their thing. I like bringing new energy, re-inventing the wheel, so to speak, every time I come out.”

— Nelly

35. “Righteous willin, the only thing supreme swimmin’.”

— Nelly

36. “I can get inspired just off the energy of Soulja Boy, just his energy, you have to take something from an artist. Everyone may not look at an artist the same way, but it’s something that artist is doing that’s creating his success.”

— Nelly

37. “If you’re fortunate to get a first album that sells 10 million you have nowhere to go but down. I’m just going to be honest and your measuring stick is so high that haters are licking their chops because you can’t do nothing but fail.”

— Nelly

38. “Your hater is your future fan in a way. Cause when it’s different they don’t really take to it at first, but after you look back on it you get a chance to reflect on it.”

— Nelly

39. “Hip-hop was super-exotic to us in Canada.”

— Nelly

40. “I was slinging whatever I could get my hands on. Whether it was chronic, whether it was crack.”

— Nelly

41. “Rappers make what’s in, in. If we want to bring back something like Jordache, we just say it and the girls start wearing it. We have a lot of pull.”

— Nelly

42. “You never know until a song comes out and becomes what it becomes, obviously you can’t predict how the masses will react.”

— Nelly

43. “I like my body so much more now since having my baby.”

— Nelly

44. “Certain artists can get away with certain things. Certain things are acceptable for certain people. It’s a difference.”

— Nelly

45. “I smoke herb, but what’s the harm it that?”

— Nelly

46. “Girls like to see girls dressed up like princesses occasionally.”

— Nelly

47. “How many people out there really set a budget?”

— Nelly