“I can honestly say, after talking about my mom passing away, I got the biggest weight off of my chest.”

When you can take things that are painful and make them funny, that’s a gift – to you and your audience.

The only way to learn is for it not to get a laugh, so you can adjust it and come back the next day to see if it’s working right. Next time, you might get a different laugh. You’re constantly rebuilding.

When you’re coming up with new material, it’s not always gonna be good.

People who win go outside of that box. It’s very simple when you look at it.

Success isn’t supposed to happen, no matter how hard you work. There’s no guarantee you’re going to succeed. There’s nothing set in stone.

I love to pop up at the movie theaters. I love to treat the people who are there.

You get one life. I’m going to embrace mine.

I don’t think comedy will ever die.

I understand that being able to appeal to the public and having an amazing sense of humour is not something that comes easy. It’s definitely a gift and for which I’m thankful.

A lot of blood, sweat, and tears have gone into this career of mine.

Stand-up can take you in so many different places, man.

I’m a Buffalo wing magnet, a sandwich fanatic, a cheesesteak guy. But I’ll only get a cheesesteak in Philadelphia. No one else does it right.

My experiences in life are getting bigger and better.

You definitely want your kids to understand their heritage, but I don’t want my kids to just focus on being black. They are people. I don’t want them to judge other people or to be judged.

Because I’m small, I’ve been called things from ‘Happy Feet’ to ‘Little Face.’

No matter what you’re going through, it makes you forget about your problems. I think the world should keep laughing.

All I am is what I’m going after.

You don’t get to know anybody in a movie until after it’s over. You work less together in a film than you do onstage.

My dad was in the army. World War II. He got his college education from the army. After World War II he became an insurance salesman.

It is true that Mr. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, after which there was a commitment to give 40 acres and a mule. That’s where the argument, to this day, of reparations starts.

I don’t believe in looking past anybody – I wouldn’t look past the Little Sisters of the Poor after they stayed up all night.

In my opinion, Louis Armstrong is the greatest trumpet stylist of all time and has influenced every trumpet player of his time and long after

I think it was Columbia politics, Columbia Records politics that, that, Tom Wilson left [Bob Dylan] after “Like A Rolling Stone”.

That went for the writers, too; they all had their own political leanings, and everybody had a voice. But the voices were mostly critical. It was social commentary, after all.