“Jerry Weintraub, the producer, might be a pain in the ass, but he really knows how to treat his actors.”

I don’t need to pat myself on the back until my arm breaks. I don’t need any of that.

Sometimes when you lose you win, son. Failure is just life’s way of preparing you for success.

I have so much respect for what’s funny.

Whatever you hear at the barber shop, stays at the barber shop.

Black audiences are hard. They always think they’re better than you. So you got to come with a little extra to satisfy them.

My daughter was a beautiful child.

My grandmother always told me how you start is how you finish.

My comedy comes from pain. I can’t stand to see someone hurting.

I always wanted to scuba dive. I used to scuba dive undercover like black Aquaman.

I took my sports experience to my life on stage. That’s why I’m so disciplined. Playing sports, I was always underestimated. I was never picked first to do anything. This always helped me. It taught me how to push myself.

Okay, first rule of this carpool. No breaking wind in my car. The only gas that Bernie Mac want to be smelling is unleaded.

As I got older, I got into all kinds of things in the streets – but for some reason, I never got caught up with the gangs growing up. Everybody dug me, man. I never had problems.

I came from a place where there wasn’t a lot of joy.

I want to have fun. Life ain’t no dress rehearsal. I want to have fun. I’m a comedian; I ain’t no politician. So everything I do is with humor, with love.

I’ve introduced myself with comedy, and once you’ve introduced yourself as something, that’s where people keep you. That’s where people like to hold you.

You have to meet all of the challenges, big and small. Because how you start is how you finish.

I started out as a very traditional actor. The first thing I ever did in terms of performance was singing.

What would I have done if I wasn’t an actor? Probably rob banks.

My height can be a problem. A lot of directors and photographers are sometimes not happy because I’m pretty tall and especially if I work with short actors the difference can be pretty massive.

I never fully committed to the child actor thing. I also liked being a regular kid and being a student.

I feel a little guilty only being an actor.

All you have to do to be a camera actor is tell the truth.

I’d made these experimental films but I thought the major chore of a filmmaker was to relate to actors.

One of the things that is assumed about actors is that they are extrovert, which is almost never the case, in my experience.