Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm looking forward to not being tired around my child. My father was tired a lot. I want to play ball with my child without having to grab my shoulder because I'm not physically fit. And I want to really teach my child and become his or her friend.
I don't think my comedy is that political. It's more social. But whatever. When you make comedy and you do stand-up, you work alone. Movies have to go under so much scrutiny. A stand-up special is a vision, and a movie is a consensus in a lot of ways.
When you become a comedian a lot of stuff that made you laugh before just stops. You stop watching your old cartoons you used to watch. You stop reading the funnies. It's like working at a strip club. You don't come home and turn on the Playboy Channel.
I just thought everybody lived around abandoned buildings and crack-heads, ... I lived in the ghetto until I was like 19. I came to Los Angeles, stayed at hotels and stuff. When I got back and I saw what my neighborhood looked like, I started getting scared.
There's some downsides to being famous, which are not even worth mentioning. But to combat the bad sides of being famous, you really should take advantage of the good sides. The good sides are, you can use that fame to get projects you might not normally get.
It's like, hmm, there's people with $2000 weaves that could have bought health care with that weave money. They don't have insurance. People want what they want. And I guess that is a reason we have this big credit card problem and a lot of these foreclosures.
The only reaction that frightens me is people not laughing. It's extraordinary to me when you get a laugh. That you can go in front of a bunch of people you never met before, you can say some stuff and they all laugh in unison - that's amazing. It's a miracle.
A lot of racism going on in the world right now. Who's more racist? Black people or white people? Black people. You know why? 'Cuz we hate black people too! Everything white people don't like about black people, black people really don't like about black people.
I've been away from my two daughters at a very important time in their life.'I have missed most of Girl Scout cookie season.Last night Zahra, my youngest called me up and said :"Daddy how come we never sell the most cookies? How come Mrs. Dunn wins every year?"'
I have four jackets, five pants, whatever, that are all the same. If you see U2 in concert, they wear the same thing every night. They just got a bunch of them. Albert Einstein used to wear brown suits every day. Why waste brainpower on something that is trivial?
The material comes from whenever you realize that you and someone else have something in common. So any conversation you've had more than once, anything you see happening to you that you see happening to a friend, you go, Hmmm, that's a situation I can make funny.
I've remade a few movies and they all have one thing in common: great endings. If you're going to remake something, make sure that ending is tight. It's a little less challenging, if you have a great ending. If you don't have a great ending, don't remake the movie.
I used to have horrible cars that would always end up broken down on the highway. When I tried to flag someone down, nobody stopped. But if I pushed my own car, other drivers would get out and push with me. If you want help, help yourself - people like to see that.
Actually, I think all addiction starts with soda. Every junkie did soda first. But no one counts that. Maybe they should. The soda connection is clear. Why isn't a presidential commission looking into this? Or at least some guys from the National Carbonation Council.
The only acting you ever see at the Oscars is when people act like they’re not mad they lost. Nicole Kidman was smiling so wide, she should have won an Emmy at the Oscars for her great performance. I was like, "If you’d done that in the movie, you’d have won an Oscar, girl."
Black people have been qualified to be president for hundreds of years. George Washington Carver could have been president. I could go on with a list of black men that were qualified to be the president of the United States. So the Obama victory is progress for white people.
If you live with a single parent, you don't see compromise. You witness a grown person living in a world where they do what they want to do. When you are raised by two parents, you are constantly watching compromise take place. Just by observing that, it made me a better person.
Whatever your pleasure, I can facilitate. You need weed, you need meth - hey, you need Prozac, I'm your man. I know how you white boys always deal with that depression. I mean me personally, I don't understand what you white boys are all depressed about. Hey, you're white! Smile!
Show me one guy or woman as funny as Rodney Dangerfield or as good as George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, or Joan Rivers. There are a lot of good comics out there, no doubt, but as far as the quality of the comics goes, I think what you have is a bunch of situational comics.
I don't write jokes first. I write down topics. I think of what I want to talk about, and then I write the jokes - they don't write me... And even if you don't think it's funny, you won't think it's boring. You might disagree, but you'll listen. And maybe even laugh as you disagree.
Here's the thing. When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it's all nonsense. There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they're not as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before.
Kids raised on a culture of “We’re not going to keep score in the game because we don’t want anybody to lose.” Or just ignoring race to a fault. You can’t say “the black kid over there.” No, it’s “the guy with the red shoes.” You can’t even be offensive on your way to being inoffensive.
In the world of animation, you can be anything you wanna be. If you're a fat woman, you can play a skinny princess. If you're short wimpy guy, you can play a tall gladiator. If you're a white man, you can play an Arabian prince. And if you're a black man, you can play a donkey or a zebra.
All people naturally hate. My kid bites people now. I didn't teach my kid to bite anybody. Kids say mean stuff. Only through love do we get this evil out of them. Only through love and structure and discipline do they not hate. The kids that hate didn't learn anything, that's the problem.
Every man has to settle down eventually. You know why you gotta settle down eventually? Because you don't want to be the old guy in the club. You know what I'm talking about. Every club you go into, there's always some old guy. He ain't really old, just a little too old to be in the club.
My relationship with my daughter is gonna affect her relationship with men for the rest of her life... Sometimes I'm walking with my daughter. I'm pushing her in the stroller, and sometimes I just pick her up and stare at her, and I realize, my only job in life is to keep her off the pole.
So if you're black or brown, you can make money in America, you can get rich in America... but whatever you decide to do, it better be positive, 'cause if one person is harmed, you will be destroyed. You see Oprah, she just be giving away money. She's doing that to keep the Feds off her back.
You know, some people say life is short and that you could get hit by a bus at any moment and that you have to live each day like it's your last. Bullshit. Life is long. You're probably not gonna get hit by a bus. And you're gonna have to live with the choices you make for the next fifty years.
My first year on 'SNL', I made $90,000 dollars. And I bought a red Corvette for $45,000 dollars. I'm thinking, 'I've got 45 grand left!' Taxes didn't even come into my equation. At the end of the first year of making 90 grand I was 25, 30 in the hole. We live in this baller, spend-money culture.
So there's a cloud of rage around me, but being an artist kind of changes that. No matter what you thought coming in, what ignorant thing you believed, you're in show business for two years, you're like, "OK, I was wrong." It's hard to be mad at any particular group of people when you're an artist.
Every comedian has a moment in his life when he realizes he's a little bit different from everyone else. It's like being the only guy in a movie who sees the ghost. The ghost talks to you and you talk to him. Then you turn to your friend and say, "Hey. Do you see that ghost? And he says, What ghost?"
Are we so desperate for entertainment that we will fall for a Trickless magician?? Saw a woman in half. Pull a rabbit out of a hat. Do something! What tricks does this guy have? "I'm in a box...and I ain't gonna eat.". "I'm in a box... and I ain't gonna eat!!" That ain't no trick! That's called living in the projects!
The government hates rap. That's why they don't arrest anybody that kills rappers! Only the good ones are dead, man! Only the good ones: Biggie dead, Tupac dead, Vanilla Ice still alive! They don't fill out a police report. They don't even have a chalk line when it's a dead rapper, they just take a piss around the body.
You don’t need no gun control, you know what you need? We need some bullet control. Men, we need to control the bullets, that’s right. I think all bullets should cost five thousand dollars… five thousand dollars per bullet… You know why? Cause if a bullet cost five thousand dollars there would be no more innocent bystanders.
I hate when people go on TV and tell you how hard it is to do animation. No, no, no. UPS is hard work. I’ve done some animation and here's how easy it is. The easiest job in the world. I go in a booth and I go, what’s the line? And the guy goes, it’s time to go to the store. And then I go, it’s time to go to the store. And then they gave me $1 million.
That's all we had when I was a kid: Robitussin. No matter what you got, Robitussin better handle it. "Daddy, I got asthma." "Robitussin." "I got cancer." "Robitussin." "I broke my leg." Daddy poured Robitussin on it. "Yeah, boy, let that 'tussin get in there. Yeah, boy, let that 'tussin get on down to the bone. The 'tussin ought to straighten out the bone."
My goals were small. My goal was to become a big enough stand-up that I wouldn't have to do radio. I could sell out a club, which is like 300 seats. If I got big enough, I could sell before I got there, and I wouldn't have to get up at 6 in the morning to do radio. That was pretty much the dream. I had no idea I'd be playing Madison Square Garden or anything.
I never wanted to churn it out. Comedians tend to work all the time. They never put it down like musicians who might make an album then take three or four years off to recharge their batteries. Comedians tend to work straight through and they get stale because of that. Even when I didn't have a lot of money I never ever did it unless I had something new to say.
I am just here to support the President of the United States. President of the United States is our boss, but he is also... you know, the President and the First Lady are kinda like the Mom and the Dad of the country. And when your Dad says something you listen, and when you don't it will usually bite you on the ass later on. So, I'm here to support the President.
We treat racism in this country like it's a style that America went through. Like flared legs and lava lamps. Oh, that crazy thing we did. We were hanging black people. We treat it like a fad instead of a disease that eradicates millions of people. You've got to get it at a lab, and study it, and see its origins, and see what it's immune to and what breaks it down.
See... Relationships are hard, man. For order, for any relationship to work, both people have to be on the same page, both people have to have the same focus, and we all know what that page is. We all know what that focus is. In order for the relationship to work both people have to have the same focus, and what's that focus? That focus is all about HER! It's all about her!
People say, 'Why is he bored with her?' Because he's a human being, that's why; same way his wife is bored with him. That is marriage - anything that's supposed to be forever, your going to get bored with it. And there is nothing wrong with it, so don't take it personal; if you are with somebody for ten years and they are not bored with you? Then something is wrong with them.
Kids always act up the most before they go to sleep. And when I see the Tea Party and all this stuff, it actually feels like racism’s almost over. Because this is the last - this is the act up before the sleep. They’re going crazy. They’re insane. You want to get rid of them - and the next thing you know, they’re fucking knocked out. And that’s what’s going on in the country right now.
Relationships, easy to get into, hard to maintain. Why are they so hard to maintain? Because it’s hard to keep up the lie! ‘Cause you can’t get nobody being you. You got to lie to get somebody. You can’t get nobody looking like you look, acting like you act, sounding like you sound. When you meet somebody for the first time, you’re not meeting them. You’re meeting their representative!
Only black people in the whole neighborhood, so let's break it down: Me, I'm a decent comedian, I'm a'ight. Mary J. Blige, one of the greatest R&B singers to ever walk the Earth. Jay-Z, one of the greatest rappers to ever live. Eddie Murphy, one of the funniest actors to ever, ever do it. Do you know what the white man that lives next door to me does for a living? He's a f*****g dentist.
You can't have anything valuable in your house. Niggers will break in and take it all! Everything white people don't like about black people, black people don't like about black people. It's like our own personal civil war. On one side, there's black people. On the other, you've got niggers. The niggers have got to go. I love black people, but I hate niggers. I am tired of niggers. Tired, tired, tired.
Nobody's about saving anymore. No one cares about a rainy day anymore. Nobody saves up enough for even an umbrella for a rainy day. It's sad. It really is a new form of slavery. We used to work to be able to afford material things. Now we work for these things. They're the boss. That house you can't afford, that car that's out of your price range, that cellphone that drains your bank account - that's your boss.
The thing that surprised me the most is just how much money women that weren't rich were paying for their hair. When you're in a beauty parlor in Harlem next to abandoned buildings and somebody's paying five grand for a weave, that's a bit much. I think this is, in a weird way, part of the health care debate. It's like, hmm, there's people with $2000 weaves that could have bought health care with that weave money.
For me, anything goes when I pick up a mike. I'm not trying to hurt people - I try not to get too personal - but I look at myself as a reporter. If you can report on anything that has to do with pop culture, then why can't I make jokes about it? Yes, it hurts. But I figure that laughter sometimes starts from pain. You might wince, but then I know that I'm doing my job. The only thing I can do wrong is not be funny.
There are a lot of good comics, no doubt, but as far as the quality of the comics goes, I think what you have is a bunch of situational comics - there are black comics that work only black crowds, gay comics that do only gay crowds, and southern comics that only work down South, and so on with Asian, Latino, Indian, midgets, etc. The previous generation's comics were better because they had to make everybody laugh.