It's so much easier for me to talk about my life in front of two thousand people than it is one-to-one. I'm a real defensive person, because if you were sensitive in my neighborhood you were something to eat.

I got my first break and became a singing waiter at eighteen or nineteen. I couldn't make a living at it. I quit. Then I got married and sold aluminum siding. My wife had problems physically. It was not good.

When you see the American chat shows, they've got so many ideas about what they could with the guests. I did stand-up on 'Jimmy Fallon' and they had loads of sketches and ideas, we don't tend to do that here.

I went to a psychotherapist for a year and a bit, and it was fantastic. I went in with a very clear question: I couldn't work out why I behaved in a certain way in certain situations, and I got that answered.

Most people don't want to work with liars. They'll work with a liar if the liar makes them money and gives them credit, but not if a person's lying extends to not making them money and not giving them credit.

As soon as a woman is old enough to have an opinion and have a voice and be unafraid, she's very much encouraged by all sorts of people to crawl under a rock and die. And it's so weird. My crime is not dying.

If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, tree surgeons debarked, and dry cleaners depressed?

People may think I'm trying something new by telling stories, but they're just jokes connected to give the illusion of stories. But really, I just continue using my imagination and creating. That's what I do.

I'm just looking for a little mystery in life... like things you can't explain. Like, you go to Mexico, they tell you don't drink the water. You go to any diner here, who brings you the water? It's a mystery.

I've been atheist since I became aware of the term, but my material is not all about religion - not by a long shot - and when I do address the topic, it is to point out where religiosity meets discrimination.

People were encouraged to snitch. [South Africa] was a police state, so there were police everywhere. There were undercover police. There were uniformed police. The state was being surveilled the entire time.

What is important to me as an actor is that, even if I have to spread my arms, take my shirt off on a mountain top with my heroine in a chiffon sari, it still has to be me and my twist or my funny take on it.

Writers get to stay with the piece. They don't just turn the script in and somebody else takes it over and goes out and produces it and edits it and all that stuff. We stay with the piece all the way through.

My mother wanted me to go to church to meet women. That's wrong, ain't it? 'Praise the Lord! Hey, how ya doing? Nice dress. Look, I'm going to go over there and get some of this wine and crackers, want some?'

A couple of weeks ago, I did karaoke and got nervous in a way I hadn't gotten nervous in 25 years. I'm so used to getting on stage in front of strangers to tell jokes, but singing is a whole different animal.

I'm the one who's dating the craft-service guy instead of the producer. Plus, if a producer is going to date a hot young thing, I'm probably not the first person on their list - the weird, quirky, funny girl.

I have the strangest time to get cast in anything. 'Ghost' was the same thing. Six months I had to wait for them to decide they had seen everybody possible. Why not? What limits me? I'm black? Oh, am I black?

I've always associated consciousness with artists like Bob Marley or Joni Mitchell or Bob Dylan. You know, artists that really talked about what was going on in the world and really artists that are timeless.

I spoke to my dad, and he said it took close to 90 dollars to raise me. But that was me and my sister, and my sister moved out when she was 16, so sometimes it can knock you up to triple digits to raise a kid.

Unfortunately, many talented people in Hollywood find their values and politics do not reflect the content they create, and many movie themes are in direct contrast with over half of today's American families.

The right wing is appealing to a shrinking, shrinking demographic of angry white people who blame their predicament in life on the fact that there are immigrants coming into the country; it's pretty ludicrous.

Louie is hugely talented. But I get very annoyed at the way the media... say, 'Louis C.K. is the greatest stand-up in the world.' He's not the greatest stand-up in the world. He's not funnier than Dave Attell.

I didn't care about the backlash. I think the reason it was so severe was because they didn't know anything about me in New Zealand. If I had made jokes about a shark attack in the US, no one would have cared.

[Harold Pinter] is a British playwright and is one of my favorite writers. Harold was very obsessed with when memory becomes mythology, that at some point you change your memory to fit who you believe you are.

There are practical things which contribute to a joke's funniness. People will find a joke funnier if they are sitting closer together, if it's cold, if they've paid and if they are told it's funny beforehand.

My success at living a moral life is pretty terrible, but I still aspire to do it! I identify with the Johnny Cash thing that trying to live a good life and be a good person are not necessarily the same thing!

I try to appreciate the simple things. I've just been camping with my son and I enjoyed that just as much if not more than a holiday in a posh hotel. I like making a cup of tea and bacon sarnie in the morning.

They say you don't want to meet your heroes, but those two guys, you do want to meet them, because they do not disappoint. Walken has this amazing sense of humor, and Pacino is like just a sweetheart of a guy.

My feeling is, personally, I want to die first... because I believe that when you die, your soul goes immediately up for judgment - and I don't want my wife up there first. No, the judgment will be horrendous.

I love it when mothers get so mad they can't remember your name. "Come here, Roy, er, Rupert, er, Rutabaga... what is your name, boy? And don't lie to me, because you live here, and I'll find out who you are."

As we're staggering out of the hospital, I don't remember doing this because I was still high, but apparently I turned to the entire operating room staff and screamed "Hey! I'd better not see this on YouTube!"

Jesus, as a philosopher is wonderful. There's no greater role model, in my view, than Jesus Christ. It's just a shame that most of the people who follow him and call themselves Christians act nothing like him.

It's understandable why a minority that was treated as badly as blacks in this country have been for so long would, when they finally found themselves on top, brag about it and want to shout from the rooftops.

When the tabloids photograph me when I'm out, I always say: "You know what, folks? I'm not married and I'm not gay. You caught me with a hot chick. You got me. Take me to hot-chick jail. Did it again. Guilty."

In no way was I intending to say, nor have I ever thought, that the men and women who defend our nation in uniform are anything but courageous and valiant, and I offer my apologies to anyone who took it wrong.

One of the first big agencies that represented me, my point person there - this was over 10 years ago, so it's no one who I work with now or have worked with recently - but he told me that I was too ambitious.

When you've seen a lot of bad stuff and just want to enjoy your life and be happy and have your kids happy and have your friends happy, you just have a value system where it raises the bar on what's important.

Even though I have fond feelings for comedy clubs, I enjoy the focus you get in a theater. Comedy clubs are a different animal. People are being served nachos and there's a blender going off in the background.

Anybody who tells a very big lie is paid attention to. If you say, 'Shakespeare could not write. He was illiterate,' everybody says, 'Well, what do you know that we don't?' That's what Trump does all the time.

People live in a place called Tornado Alley - and they're surprised when they get hit by a tornado. I'm sorry when they get hit by tornadoes, but when you live in Tornado Alley you can't really claim surprise.

No perfume. Because I want to know how you smell - right off the bat. Don't mask it up. I need to know how you smell because I need to know how we connect. A smell is a big thing. Pheromones. Don't cover that.

It's weird with stand-up comedy. It doesn't really translate worldwide. I want to figure out how do I make it worldwide. Do a special in Africa. Can't beat that. Pull that off, then I will have done something.

The planets. Now footnote, I'm including Pluto in the planets, because I think it's terrible what they did to Pluto. And it's still a planet to me. I grew up with Pluto as a planet, it will always be a planet.

The first time probably people really were aware of me, I unfortunately had the title of Showtime's Funniest Person in America. And that's a really tough title to travel around with when you're not even known.

I would have loved to have had a gay dad. At school, there were always kids saying 'my dad is bigger than your dad, my dad will batter your dad!' So what? My dad will shag your dad..and your dad will enjoy it.

The average girl would rather have beauty than brains because she knows the average man can see much better than he can think- Ladies' Home JournalI'd rather have two girls at seventeen than one at thirty-four

Before they give you a lethal injection, they swab your arm with alcohol. It's true. Well, they don't want you to get an infection, and you can see their point. They don't want some guy go to hell and be sick.

A scary dream makes your heart beat faster. Why doesn't the part of your brain that controls your heartbeat realize that another part of your brain is making the whole thing up? Don't these people communicate?

I enjoy watching a woman with really bad teeth and a good sense of humor struggling to use her lips and tongue to hide her teeth when she's laughing. I just stand there and tell her joke after joke after joke.

Every time you open the paper now, there seems to be another celebrity getting arrest for masturbation. First, it was Peewee Herman and then George Michael. If masturbation's a crime, I should be on death row.

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