William Forsythe Quotes

Yeah, I was a delinquent. It was when I was in the ninth grade. I was doing stupid stuff, and the cops came into the class. I was humiliated more than anything.

I went to Locke High School in Watts towards the end of the super gangbanging era.

Before rap came along, I was, actually, actively in the streets; getting in trouble, doing the wrong thing.

I wanted the attention I missed at home, so I became the leader of a gang. That way, I got attention and was recognized as being important. It wasn't a bad gang - you know, in poor districts in New York, there's a gang to every block. We never robbed at the point of a gun; we'd steal potatoes from a grocery store, or crackers.

I am rather in favour of dealing with teenage hooliganism.

My parents separated before I was 1 year old. I moved in with my aunt and uncle when I was in fourth grade. I was, like, 8 or 9 years old. I was getting in a lot of trouble when I was in Southern California. My older sisters were in gangs. My older brother was in gangs.

It was a strike against me that I didn't wear baggy jeans and jerseys and that I never hustled, never sold drugs.

I definitely had a gang influence with friends and family growing up in South Central, and people might think that Beverly Hills definitely shielded me from some problems. But in actuality, it only opened up a whole new can of worms.

Whether it is kids carrying knives because they are in gangs or kids carrying knives because they are afraid of gangs, it is the gang culture that underpins the problem.

If we grow up in these communities where we have gangs, well, what do you think we're going to belong to? That's what happened to me and what's still happening to hundreds of thousands of other individuals.

I was supposed to be in 'The Wire' but I was getting in trouble in school and on the streets.

We can either allow our youth to shoot baskets or watch them shoot people.

There are too many people with a Father Flanagan philosophy that there is no such thing as a bad boy. There are plenty of bad boys.

… law by itself can only address the symptoms, but education can reach deep into our heart, which is far more effective to set the society on the right course. So, education is the fundamental solution.

I want the violence among young people in this country to stop - particularly gang violence.

I just have a problem with youth culture.

I know Chicago cops. They're tough. They have to be. The whole city would explode. It's like a bomb, Chicago.

I grew up in Queens in N.Y., and in parts of my neighbourhood, there were a lot of Italian Americans and a lot of people who were either affiliated with nefarious people or had seen so many movies that they were embodying that.

I was in middle school right around the time the Bloods and the Crips started taking root in Compton and a lot of the other neighborhoods around me. I saw way too many of my peers - smart, kind, good kids - who got drawn into gangs and violence, and their futures were going to be forever scarred by that.

My freshman and sophomore years in high school, I spent a lot of time trying to get back on the right track. I was arrested multiple times by the time I was 16, so I had a little harder time trying to adjust like a lot of us do in high school.

In Hoboken, when I was a kid, I lived in a plenty tough neighborhood.

Crime is out of control in Baltimore City.

I didn't really go to school much, and I went out a lot. At 16, that's not something you should be doing.

It was very difficult when I was young because there are problems with violence, gangs, guns, drugs - a criminal life. I had friends that choose a criminal life. Some of them are in prison, and some of them are dead. They chose the bad way.

Growing up in Flint, Michigan, I saw so many kids from my school end up in jail or unemployed, and gangs would hang out and cause trouble in my neighborhood. I had to learn how to protect myself, because it didn't feel like anyone else was protecting me.