I learned hard lessons in life; I had to because I had so much happen: My mother died my sophomore year in high school. The next year, same day, my brother dropped dead. Two years after that, I got married because my girlfriend got pregnant. The year after my wedding, my father – who I had only recently met – died.
BERNIE MACI 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.’
More Bernie Mac Quotes
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When I get a chance to play golf or go on a boat with good people, take the boat out and put some lobsters on the grill, get the ice-cold beer and the cigars – that’s heaven here on earth.
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When it comes to raising children, I believe in give and take. I give orders and they take ’em.
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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.
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Why do people love Richard Pryor so much? ‘Cause he had problems.
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I can’t build myself by beating somebody down.
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When I hit my 20s, I struggled to make it. I got married at 19, and my daughter, Je’Niece, was born a year later. I worked blue collar jobs during the day and comedy clubs at night, and I was earning about $25 a year doing stand-up.
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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.
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If you mess something up, remember who got you there. Don’t be pointing fingers, even if finger-pointing is called for. Only one you got to blame is your own self.
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When I go onstage, I want to relieve your mind, your pressures.
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The one thing about comedy, making it become a part of you, the audience loves it, because you become part of them.
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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.
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I hate to let people down. I was like that in sports and I was like that in comedy. I was like that at work. When I worked General Motors and stuff like that, when I say something, I mean it.
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I had to do clubs where street gangs were, had to do motorcycle gangs, gay balls and things of that nature.
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My family are police officers, detectives. My brother Mitch is FBI. Mitch is like that – a stern enforcer.
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They say if you don’t have your health you ain’t got nothing, but the truth is you ain’t got nothing if you don’t have no one to worry about your health.
BERNIE MAC