“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.”

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 get facials. I get a manicure and pedicure every week. I get my hair cut, and I oil myself down from head to toe. I got that from my brother. I was so impressed with how high maintenance he was. When he left the room, you could still smell him for an hour.

Life is a jest of the Gods and there is no justice. You must learn to laugh… or else you’ll weep yourself to death.

After I ran off the mound, I looked over at the St. Louis dugout. There were players rolling around on the floor, laughing. Poor Terry. I’ll have to admit that was a hell of a curveball.

It’s not terribly dignified to have anyone seeing one laugh at one’s own material.

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.

I remember laughing when we made those slogans up [about abortion]. . . .

If I can tell someone a story that makes them bend over and laugh, that’s bigger than anything else.

It’s great to work with the people who make you laugh and who are funnier than I am.

Well, it’s a lot less dangerous – working with snakes and mountaibn lions and dangerous animals – than working in Hollywood [laughs]. Hollwood will kill you.