“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.”

The success of my comedy has been not being afraid to touch on subject matters or issues that everyone else is politically scared of.

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.

For me, the lame part of the Sixties was the political part, the social part. The real part was the spiritual part.

I’m not a city kind of guy. I’m happiest when I’m tromping through the woods. That’s why I don’t live in Los Angeles.

Destroy or build. Crazy or noncrazy. I’m not nostalgic about the old city. I don’t enjoy it that much.

I lived there [ in New York City] as an artist, but never as a Chinese artist.

I’m not a city kind of guy. I’m happiest when I’m tromping through the woods.

I am the son of poor peasants who came at a very young age to live in Algeria. I only recently saw the place where they were born, near the city of Marrakech.

I spent a lot of time standing on street corners [of New York City] talking to local residents. I spent time in bookstores and galleries. But most of the time, I really did not have much to do.

I have always stated I designed the stadium as a toilet seat.