My father was the role model I looked up. My dad was an entertainer, too. I patterned my life after him. He wanted me to do better than he did. He never sold a record in his life, but to me he was still a rock star.

My father was the role model I looked up to. My dad was an entertainer, too. I patterned my life after him. He wanted me to do better than he did. He never sold a record in his life, but to me he was still a rock star.

There's ups and downs of any job. If you worked at the post office, there's ups and downs. You have your good days, and you have your bad days. If you're a housewife, you have your good days, and you have your bad days.

My father was the role model I looked up to. My dad was an entertainer, too. I patterned my life after him. He wanted me to do better than he did. He never sold a record in his life, but to me, he was still a rock star.

Listen, Bruce Lee fought out of anger. That’s why they call it the Fists of Fury. Michael Jackson danced with fury. I do stand up out of fury. I’m not mad at anybody. I’m not mad at any human being because I’m a human being.

I don't even deal with politics. I just don't believe in them. I think politics are politricks. My whole thing is power to the people. I don't put my faith in any one man. I keep my faith in God. That's where I keep my faith.

Having a daughter makes you see things in a different way. You have to see how you're carrying yourself because there's a little girl. There's not a little boy, there's a little girl. I think I'm a little more overprotective.

Everybody's out to get something from somebody. 'Gold diggers' doesn't just mean money, it can mean time, it can mean feelings. It can mean anything when you're taking and not giving. When people don't know how to reciprocate.

Listen, Bruce Lee fought out of anger. That's why they call it the 'Fists of Fury.' Michael Jackson danced with fury. I do stand up out of fury. I'm not mad at anybody. I'm not mad at any human being because I'm a human being.

I give [Barack Obama] a 10 [on a scale of 1 to 10] because he's not God, and he inherited a couple of wars, and a financial mess.I want to see him curse somebody out on TV. You can't finesse a bull. He's gotta throw down. He's in the shark tank.

Black people dance well because we start early - there's music being played everywhere. White people? They don't start dancing until they get to college, and by then, it's too late; the bottom don't move with the top no matter how hard they try.

My sense of humor was a tool for me getting past my mother and father separating, my older brother having cerebral palsy, and the bullies in the schoolyard. I had to make them laugh to keep them off my ass. I brought that to my professional career.

Having a daughter makes you see things in a different way. This is my only girl. So I don't care what it takes to protect her. You can call it what you want to call it. As long as you treat her the same way I treat her, like my princess, I don't mind.

The actors are different, although I didn't set out to be different. My inspiration came from people like Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence and Will Smith. The genre is what it is. My inspiration was drawn from great movies like 48 Hours, Bad Boys and Rush Hour.

I'm not really struggling about my career. The struggles are in my personal life. I can't really pinpoint how long it took me to get where I'm at, and I didn't care how long it was going to take, because it's not about the destination, it's about the journey.

Fame doesn't matter. Money doesn't matter. Those things are forever fleeting. I just want to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, so that when I'm long gone my great-great-grandchildren can walk up to it and say, "That's my ancestor." That will be my legacy.

So I think all comedians are earning their wings into heaven. We're all going to heaven, but everybody's not going to get their wings. Some people are just going to be regular angels. Doing cleanup, janitor work. In heaven, I'm going to sit on the couch with Oprah.

I'm human, I feel, I understand. That's the highest level of love, is understanding - when you can understand someone, when you can love them with their flaws and their faults. So I understand, I consider. I may speak the truth, but I'll consider your feelings, too.

I see the ups and downs. I see the mistakes I've made. I see a funny person. I see a serious person. I see a diamond. I see the good times. I see the bad times. And I see knowledge of self. I see knowledge of self. I know who I am. When I look in the mirror, I see me.

I have a pretty diverse audience, and that makes me happy - laughter is universal, and I don't differentiate between people at all. Why should I? People are people. There's no reason why one person can't relate to any other person on this planet in some way or another.

When I was a young kid, my pops introduced me to it. He took me to Harlem, 145th and Edgecombe, to watch the filming of Claudine with James Earl Jones and Diahann Carroll. That was my first taste of seeing a set and the cameras, and I was bit by the acting bug at a young age.

On 'Saturday Night Live,' I never really wrote. You know, I would just - I would let the writers cast me into the show. So my strength - and I put all my energies into performance. I just couldn't deal with the rejection, you know, getting your sketches cut, and it was hard for me.

I have friends who are black, white, purple, gay, straight, Martian, yellow, old, and young. I have friends who are animals and a few who I believe to be robots. All of them are people to me. In my mind, it's not about what you look like or what you do; it's about who you are inside.

There's nothing in the world like live entertainment. With TV, you have to wait for your results; with live entertainment, people let you know right then and there. That relationship is established in 30 seconds. The first 30 seconds, they'll let you know whether they like you or not.

I'm not a child star, but you could say that I've grown up on TV. I went from being an unknown, down-and-out comic from Brooklyn and the Bronx to being a regular character on a major network comedy called 'Martin.' From there I went on to become the most notable black comic on 'Saturday Night Live' since Eddie Murphy.

I want to be an example of a guy who made something of himself out of nothing. A guy who overcame the odds of a tough childhood, who worked hard, who didn't let his surroundings get the best of him and lead him to jail or the graveyard. Where I ended up - being a comedian, a TV star, and a movie actor - might be unique, but my story is not.

They say when opportunity knocks you should let it in and invite it to sit at your table. F*** that -- when opportunity knocks, you should take it captive. Beat that s*** down. I've got opportunity tied to a chair in my basement with a ball gag in its mouth. Opportunity ain't even thinking about leaving my house. If you keep quiet for a second, you'll hear it whining.

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