You’re never going to see me playing a buffoon.
BERNIE MACWhen 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.
More Bernie Mac Quotes
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When I go onstage, I want to relieve your mind, your pressures.
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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.
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I can act. I’ve been acting for a long time, but like anything else, don’t nobody owe you nothing. You’ve go to pay your dues. You go from A to Z; you don’t go from M to Z.
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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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You don’t see me in Los Angeles a lot. I go back home. Because I can’t play the game. I can’t – my tolerance – I know I’m getting old; I’ll be 50 this year. And you know how I know I’m getting old? ‘Cause my tolerance level is low.
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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’m not a politician, I’m a comedian. I know my limitations.
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Black audiences are hard. They always think they’re better than you. So you got to come with a little extra to satisfy them.
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I ain’t running for office. I ain’t running for nothing.
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I’m not ashamed to tell the truth about what happened in my family. I think that’s what makes my comedy different.
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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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I’m not a star, I hate that word, and I’m an entertainer. Stars fall, you know, I’m an entertainer. I want to be known as an entertainer.
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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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You know you poor when you eatin’ breakfast food late. You fryin’ toast? At nine o’clock at night? With bacon? You’re broke.
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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.
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