“I became the storyteller of South Side Chicago. I used an old Kiwi liquid shoe polish as a microphone. I’d go around the house interviewing everybody, telling stupid jokes, doing voices. I mimicked Sidney Poitier, Sammy Davis Jr., people on ‘Laugh-In,’ Flip Wilson.”

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.

We are often unaware of how much we love the people around us. This is true for everyone.

No matter what happens around us, or to us, through love, our soul reaches immortality, conquering all dimensions and all destinies.

The stories themselves haunt, they stick around, they linger, inhabiting a little corner of the reader’s brain and resurfacing to evoke mystery or sadness or longing.

Movements of people create change – not just any one person or organization, but when lots of people are in motion around a shared vision.

I’m not running around as a continual ray of sunshine. It’s just I don’t believe in wasting time feeling sorry for myself. Get over it.

What is my task? To get the gospel around the world in the shortest possible time to every man and woman and boy and girl!

I may call it jealousy, or may be anxiety and moreover, need. Even now I’m anxious at times because when I am with Ren, everything around feels like a dream.

I feel that I’ve lived and see the same evolution in this regard around disability.