“I can act. I’ve been acting for a long time, but like anything else, don’t nobody owe you nothing. You’ve go to pay your dues. You go from A to Z; you don’t go from M to Z.”

I want to speak directly to the audience, to say, ‘I’m like you – I’m frustrated, I’m not an expert, I don’t have a manual on parenting, I make mistakes, I’m selfish too.’

You can’t be a doctor if you don’t know the entire parts of the body.

I know doing movies is where I need to be. That’s where my audience wants to see me.

You know you poor when you eatin’ breakfast food late. You fryin’ toast? At nine o’clock at night? With bacon? You’re broke.

Hugs aren’t like pieces of pie. Plenty of hugs to go around.

My humor had changed from foolishness to making sense.

You’re never going to see me playing a buffoon.

I think a lot of TV insults the audience.

I was a street performer for two years.

I’m not afraid to fail. Sometimes when you lose, you win. Sometimes when you win, you lose.

You can’t change what happened. Just like you can’t change the future by worrying about it. You just have to keep moving.

Bernie Mac just says what you think but are afraid to say.

It took me a long time to get to where I’m at, in my career and as a man. I was going through my trials and tribulations in life, and it gave me the strength to tackle things that have come my way.

Why I was so intrigued with Red Skelton was because he was able to make you cry and laugh and the same time. That was power.

I had to do clubs where street gangs were, had to do motorcycle gangs, gay balls and things of that nature.

I’m not ashamed to tell the truth about what happened in my family. I think that’s what makes my comedy different.

Sometimes when you’re acting, you only need a little bit of something to sort of channel or, you know, transport into a place.

I would love to play Jimi Hendrix.

I’m an artist. Artists don’t need permission to work. Regardless of whether I’m acting or not, I write. I write when I’m tired in fact, because I believe your most pure thoughts surface.

I would love to have an ocean of love right now. That said, the number-one rule of acting is, ‘Do not seek approval from the audience.’ People don’t realize that. You can’t do stuff to get applause. You have to live in the truth.

The nature of the human mind is such that unless it is stimulated by images of things acting upon it from without, all remembrance of them passes easily away.

My approach to acting is that I am totally intuitive. I read the script and I get it. If I don’t get it, I can’t do it.

Don’t think for a moment that I’m really like any of the characters I’ve played. I’m not. That’s why it’s called ‘acting’.

With any part you play, there is a certain amount of yourself in it. There has to be, otherwise it’s just not acting. It’s lying.