“People like rumors. They’re going to say things like, ‘You was at the club with Lil’ Kim, and you and Kanye West got into a fist fight.’ You can’t get upset. You’ve got to keep hope alive.”

I wasn’t disciplined at all. As good of an athlete as I was, I was not disciplined. Had I had the drive that I have in comedy, and acting, and writing, that’s why I knew it just wasn’t right for me.

I was born October 5, 1957, on the South Side of Chicago, in the Woodlawn area, a neighborhood that hasn’t changed much in forty-five years. Our house was on 66th and Blackstone, but the city tore it down when the rats took over.

I’m funny. I’m a comedian. I’m not a clown.

Making people laugh is what I’ve been doing since I was like four or five years old. I still have a lust, I still have a passion. I don’t care about how I look, I’m dedicated to the laughs.

I want people to say at the end of my day, you know, like I used to say about Sidney Poitier and James Cagney and Joan Crawford and Red Skelton and those guys and Bill Cosby. They did quality and substance. You always remember them.

The one thing about comedy, making it become a part of you, the audience loves it, because you become part of them.

I want to play a villain – I can’t wait to play a villain.

I’m an ordinary guy with an extraordinary job.

I don’t ever watch myself. By watching, you try to perfect yourself, become a robot.

I want to do something that people can really say, ‘Hey, man, that was good, I’m proud of you, I’m proud of that.’ ‘Pride’ and ‘Transformers’ and things like that.

I’ve never been no superficial cat.

Comedy has been so good to me.

Whatever success I’ve had, I always like to top it.

I don’t care about how I look; I’m dedicated to the laughs. You know, I used to be a clown, so – my name was Smoothie the Clown. All the training I had, all my training is geared toward making people laugh, and I didn’t care about being cool.

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

I hate to compare anything, especially while I’m promoting. I feel that’s another disrespect, but ‘Ocean’s 13’ is the best movie I’ve ever done in my life. No question.

Let me tell you, life is interesting regardless of when you are in the fight.

Natural hazards, however formidable, are inherently less dangerous and less uncertain than fighting hazards. All conditions are more calculable, all obstacles more surmountable than those of human resistance.

Conversely, it is correct to say that bringing about peace would be the best way to fight terror.

I don’t believe the United States will be ready to join Russia in fighting terrorists in Syria.

Fight the fighters, not their wars.

The Russians are fighting for us, for the world, and for their self.

There’s a time when people give their words to each other it has to mean something. I’m a street cat. I’ve belonged in gangs and when you had a partner, you went down with your partner whether you won the fight or lost it. You went down together.

Al-Qaeda has one ideology and they go back to the same leadership in Afghanistan or in Syria or in Iraq. That’s the question. You have tens of thousands of foreigners, that’s definitely correct. We are fighting them on the ground and we know this.