Top 75 Philly Quotes

There’s a certain level of realness in Philly. You know, just – people are people. You know, it doesn’t matter who you are or who you think you are, you’re just a person in Philly.

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.

I don’t like Philly. I don’t care at all about Philly.

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.

I came to Philly not only because of the quality of the team and the organization, but also the fans, the passion – it’s really palpable in that city.

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.

In Philly, there are a lot of social programs. If you have a degree, you can go and apply. I was basically a social worker, but I became sort of a sub teacher in a special program, helping kids with reading or math. But we would also do plays, learn about music… We were doing lots of fun stuff, but that was such hard work.

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.

Philly is old-school.

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

You can be in this league for 10-15 years and not win a championship. My boy, Nelson Agholor, been in the league for three years and got a ring with Philly. That’s what we live for and dream for. That’s why I think a lot of guys stay in Pittsburgh: because we always compete for championships.

Look, I spent six years in Philly. And for the longest time, I thought there was nothing like Eagles fans. Until I got to Buffalo.

I got love for my Philly people. Those fans are about as crazy as you’ll find anywhere.

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.

If you from Philly, you ain’t a Villanova guy. Villanova is the suburbs. That’s all you know about Villanova.

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

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.

Philly is a place where people love change as long as things stay the same for them.

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

Philly was a great opportunity because I met Pat Shurmur. I was very grateful for that. Unfortunately I wish I had more football memories there. I didn’t play in any regular-season games, which sucks because I wanted to play.

I always tried to win. Philly saw that.

I’ve done a lot of plays before where I had to do a New York accent, but never a Philly one before. They do the rhotic ‘r’ – where you say the ‘r’ – where most New Yorkers don’t.

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.

Shamir and Nasir were my homeboys. They were from Philly and they’re Muslim. I’m not a Muslim, but I liked their names. They were like, ‘your name starts with an N, so just come up with Nahmir.’ So I just put ‘Nah’ in front of ‘Amir.’

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

My toughness comes from just being from Philly, man.

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

The reason I became a better player was because I came to Philly.

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.

I never really thought of my neighborhood in South Philly as being a neighborhood; it was more a state of mind. For people who aren’t familiar with those kinds of places, it’s a whole different thing. Like, 42nd Street in New York City is a state of mind.

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.

I’m not a DJ – I don’t know how to scratch or mix records, but I know how to party, and I know music. I grew up in Philly; it’s a very musical city. My house was full of music.

I think that I identify with Philadelphia for a lot of reasons. Without even thinking about it, I called myself ‘Philly’s Constant Hitmaker’ when I first got a MySpace, before I had any real hits. It was kind of just a funny slogan, basically lifted from the Rolling Stones’ first album, ‘England’s Newest Hit Makers.’

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.

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 made the mistake of going to a barber who was not from Philly, and let’s just say, I would never do that again.

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 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.’

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.

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.

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 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.

Anybody that’s from somewhere that’s made it in music outside of New York or L.A., if it’s a unique enough place, they’ll always say, ‘Dude’s from Minnesota!’ Or wherever, you know? So that’s how I got the Philly connection.

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.

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.

I did an internship at the Ardent theatre company in Philly after dropping out of college. I was earning $165 a week building sets and cleaning the toilets. Cleaning toilets is a good way of getting in touch with your creativity. That’s when you find out if you got anything going on in your head.

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

I really value my days down there in ECW in Philly.

For me, I listened to a lot of female jazz artists. And of course, the Motown and Philly sounds, all that stuff was very influential. And church and gospel.

Every moment I spend in Philly, it’s amazing. The city respects us, respects sports, respects hard work.

I would rather be here in the Philly Hall of Fame than the NBA Hall of Fame.

There was never any animosity from the Philly fans.

I’ve been to a lot of different cities around the world. People in Philly are a lot different… We’re raised a little more street-smart. We’re raised a little tougher. We’re raised to never back down and to hold our ground.

People know I’m Philly straight up and down.