Top 70 Philly Quotes

I like a lot of ratchet, trap music. Definitely 21 Savage. We need some music like that. ManMan Savage. A lot of the Atlanta scene. But Philly, too.

If I wasn’t from Philly, I couldn’t promise you that I would have the same drive and the same ambition because, as a little kid, I always saw myself as making it out, and I would escape with television.

When I was younger, growing up in Pittsburgh, they had a ‘Golden Gloves’ program through the Boys and Girls Club. In Pittsburgh, New York, Philly, Washington, those areas, I would go and spar at competitions.

You look at my career, everywhere I went – Miami, Green Bay, Cleveland, Philly – they were always bringing in draft picks and former first-rounders and guys with free-agent deals to take my job.

Summertime where guys played pickup, we got a thing in Philly called Summertime Rec. In that summertime you can’t duck no smoke. You can’t duck nobody in that basketball vibes.

I think Philly is arguably the best sports town – football town – in America.

A.I. didn’t ask me to do a bunch of stuff for him. He just wanted me around. Usually we were at the Friday’s in Philly, which he should have bought, because he was there so much.

I grew up – obviously I’m from Philly, where Kobe is from, so we grew up idolizing Kobe. He meant everything to us.

Philly has that tradition of great basketball.

I think the one commonality between the two Super Bowl teams I’ve been on is great, great teammates. I can honestly say that guys in Philly could definitely thrive in New England and vice versa – if you throw out the scheme differences.

I’m not from Philly – I’m from South Jersey, but we still consider that the Philly area.

I do really love New York. I feel like there are more Asian restaurants. Philly has a sick food scene, I don’t want to diss it at all. But New York is so much bigger and there are more options.

Who would’ve thought that this little girl in the ghetto in Philly would be playing the first black lesbian superhero on network TV?

You can call me whatever. Philly Cheese. Bubble Cheese. Whatever.

That’s what Flyers fans are all about. My favorite thing about Philly fans is booing their own team.

I’m an Atlanta guy. I think Philly knows that. But I’ve adopted Philly as my second home, and they’ve embraced me.

I have some really cool memories here in Philly, and I thank you for the support. These are great fans, and I think when you play hard and when you do your best to win, they appreciate that. It was fun to be part of this organization and play for this city. I really enjoyed the time I was here.

Wrestling fans are usually pretty passionate, but Philly is one of the cities that takes that to a different level.

Wherever you’re from, you adapt to your environment. It definitely made my music a little bit more explicit. Because I really was in North Philly, I listened to State Property and stuff. Everything my dad listened to, I listened to.

Philly will always have a special place in my heart, and I will cherish the great memories with the city and my teammates there.

We’re all in this together. I learned that lesson growing up in West Philly. When I shoveled the sidewalk my parents didn’t let me stop with our house. They told me to keep shoveling all the way to the corner. I had a responsibility to my community.

I don’t know… Philly’s a little different. It’s a little bit more competitive. Everybody’s got something to prove. In Atlanta, you see stars every day walking down the street; it’s normal.

In 2001, I moved from Philly to Atlanta, where I lived for six years. I had never lived anywhere but Philly, and you can imagine the culture shock; the Civil War seeps into daily life and conversation down South in a way it never does up North.

I felt like people who had a lost mindset or who occasionally did stupid things were having a ‘donkey’ moment, or some of them are permanent donkeys, so I just started calling them donkeys. So when I went to Philly to do my own morning show, that’s when I first started doing ‘Donkey of the Day.’

Philly has always been one of our favorite towns to play in, and the fans have been very loyal and very supportive over the years.

Philly is old-school.

Philly’s busy enough. There are tons of record stores and record-head friends and plenty of D.I.Y. shows. It’s a place where people pass through and bands don’t usually skip on tour. There are lots of music resources, but it’s not too over the top.

To research my book ‘Me the People’ – in which I have rewritten the entire Constitution of the United States – I flew to Greece, the birthplace of democracy. I bused to Philly, the home of independence. I even, if you can believe it, read the Constitution of the United States.

As a youngster, I lived in Philly for 12 years, and I would go up to New York to do shows and make money – it was the dream to maybe be able to survive there and live there.

Creed 2′ was amazing and it felt very familiar, that boxing environment, being on the streets in Philly and everything, that was nice.

People know I’m Philly straight up and down.

But I love Chicago summers on Lake Michigan, Philly cheesesteaks on South Street, falling in love in Brooklyn, street fairs in Asheville, North Carolina.

There’s no secret about it: Every team does things differently. Seattle runs their program one way. New England runs it another way. Philly runs it another way.

There’s a lot of haters in Philly, but it’s a lot of people that give you support – but way more haters. It’s definitely a great city to be from. But it’s not really a lot of people that come out of there. So when you, like, make it out of Philadelphia, everywhere else is easy.

Nothing has gotten me out of Philadelphia. I moved 20 minutes away from Philly. That’s about it.

You can take the boy out of Philly but not the Philly out of the boy. It shapes my world view. It was a great place to grow up.

Everybody really don’t rock with each other in Philly – that’s a problem. ‘Cause me being in Atlanta now, I stay in Atlanta, and I get to see everybody work with everybody no matter what.

I booked time in Philly Sound, which is an old church in south Philly that has a studio to the side of it that holds about 350 people. On the radio, we announced a free gig, bought about three kegs of beer. That got the audience slightly off of their legs, and we rocked the house.

Honestly, I’ve always loved cheesesteaks. They’re kind of my go-to when there’s nothing else to have at restaurants, but obviously it’s a little different when you’re out in Philly and have an authentic Philly cheesesteak.

For me, Philadelphia was always kind of that city you traveled to as an independent wrestler. I traveled there once or twice a month, doing that seven-to-eight-hour drive from Cleveland to Philly just to try and make a name for myself.

Philly DJs sort of always won battles and always won awards and stuff like that and were always super sharp.

I think about growing up back in Philly. It was about friendship with the guys and having a distant crush on some gal. And when you finally got the nerve to take her out on a date, you went to her parents’ house with a shine on your shoes, took her to the movies, and got her home nice and early.

I used to live in Philly, so I was in Baltimore a lot wrestling before I got to WWE, wrestling for different promotions.

What’s the difference in opening from scratch in Philly or opening from scratch in New York? The old out-of-town tryout circuit – taking the show pre-Broadway to cities like Boston, New Haven, Philadelphia, Washington – has sort of been replaced with the amount of workshops we do.

I love Philly so much. I know that at any time, any place, a fight can break out. Those are great comedy fans.

John Kerry couldn’t even order a Philly cheesesteak properly.

Philadelphia is kind of like a Mecca for professional wrestling, especially the old ECW Arena down in South Philly. That’s the place I always wanted to wrestle growing up, and I got that opportunity when I worked with Ring of Honor.

Philly fans are more emotional, but the Buffalo fans are a bigger crowd I think.

No offense to Boston, but I was glad to get out of there. I think it’s just because I’m from Philly. Honestly, the blue collar side of each are pretty similar in ways, but something about the makeup of your brain, Philly versus Boston. It’s a lot different, in weird ways.

My biggest moments have been in Philly – I met Jay-Z and Beyonce in Philly, I did the Powerhouse in Philly.

Philly ain’t a good environment for you when you headed in a different direction. Bad things happen left and right. You might walk up the street, make a wrong turn, and your whole life could flip.

Philly gives me that raw edge. We just do us.

When I was in college in Philly, there was a lot of post-punks… hardcore… like, rock. Sixties, retro, proto-Strokes kind of bands.

I love the dignity in the name Philadelphia, but at heart, we’re Philly.

With messy food, or foods with a lot of sauce, you do ‘The Hunch.’ I learned it in Philly, watching the dudes in suits eat cheesesteaks. You keep your elbows above your hands because if you don’t, the grease runs down your sleeve to your elbow.

The more disgruntled the white people are, the happier they are to see me, that has to be it. I do really well in Boston, I do really well in Cleveland, I do really well in Philly, Jersey, certain parts of Florida. Places where there are really really aggressive white people tend to love me.

I think the big thing with Philly is I have such a great relationship with all the personnel decision makers that if there ever does come a day where I am traded or something does happen, it’s going to be an open conversation.

I have nothing but love for the Philly fans, even the ones who were highly criticizing me or opinionated in any way.

Philly gave me my ambition and drive to get more. It’s a reminder to stay on top of my game. That’s not a place I want to go back to.

When people look at me, ask me, or say something to me, they know I’m Philly.

In Philly, I had to be a scorer for us to have a chance to win.

Passyunk Productions is our film & tv production company. The name comes from a street in Philly, Passyunk Avenue, where the concept of The Roots was born, as Ahmir and I started out busking on the corner of 5th & Passyunk back in the early ’90s.

Philly is a city made up of many neighborhoods – more than a hundred, in fact – and the citizens can be very territorial.

I always support Philly.

I’m 61 now, and I’m comfortable in my lifestyle… I don’t yearn for the limelight on a regular basis. I get a kick out of it every so often. I go to Philly and go to a game, and they make a big deal about me. That’s fun for a couple of days, and I can go back to my own private life.

I still think of myself as a Philadelphian. I still root for the Philadelphia teams. Other than my house, I still feel most at home in terms of cities when I’m in Philly.

We first started to rent old VFW halls in Philly or whatever; we rented kegs and did parties and played our own music. We had to find a way to do it because nobody else was helping us, and I think now it’s important to keep those dialogues happening, those parties happening.

I feel like a lot of performers’ worst shows happened in Philly. There’s something about that town.

I was always running off to the city, whether it was Philly or New York, going somewhere where there was something more for me.

It’s a city of its own and has its own sound. I think what makes it different is the drama; you know how they say everyone marches to their own beat? Well, I think Philly has its own beat as well, and it’s distinctive. It sounds easy, but it’s hard to play.