“I’ve done auditions where the casting director is taking the paper out of my hand in the middle of reading.”

So many doors can be opened up from stand-up comedy, and the first one that was opened up for me was acting. But you can go from acting to being a TV personality to being a radio personality to being a writer to being a producer, to just being a visionary, to voiceover work.

I didn’t work hard to sit down and not work.

The one thing about the business of entertainment is that you have to learn patience.

Men are like lions. We hunt.

Laughter heals all wounds, and that’s one thing that everybody shares.

Take me seriously. Take me and my role seriously. Take my talent seriously.

I don’t know about other people, but I love to work.

My drive is other people’s success.

I’m not the most attractive fella. I’m not a Billy Dee Williams. Personality is everything.

I feel like I have a job to do, like I constantly have to reinvent myself.

My style of comedy is more self-deprecating. I think that makes me more relatable. When you deal with ‘topics’ – race, white versus black – you’re not separating from the pack. You’re doing what everybody else is doing.

The more I up the ante for myself, the better it is in the long run. I try to interact with my fans as much as possible. It’s good that the person I’m being onstage isn’t really an act. It’s really me.

I live by that. You grind hard so you can play hard. At the end of the day, you put all the work in, and eventually it’ll pay off. It could be in a year, it could be in 30 years. Eventually, your hard work will pay off.

Comedy is my therapy. That’s how I deal with my problems, my personal battles. I talk about it. I give it to my fans. When they laugh at it, it’s a release, for lack of a better word.

Almost anything can be funny if said the right way – but it has to be said the right way.

No matter what, people grow. If you chose not to grow, you’re staying in a small box with a small mindset.

Amanda Bynes and I have become close since filming ‘Hairspray.’ It’s so weird because I grew up watching her.

Whether it’s going out and auditioning for the play or trying out for the basketball team, you have to explore your boundaries and see where you really want to go and the only way you can do that is to break out of your shell.

If you’d have asked me when I was auditioning for High School Musical if I ever thought I was going to play a Marine.

George Harrison: The day after the Blue Angel audition.

Sometimes the only way you can get an audience is at an audition.

At this point in my career, I don’t have to deal with audition rejections. So I get my rejection from other things.

When I was younger, I would go to auditions to have the opportunity to audition, which would mean another chance to get up there and try out my stuff.

You’ve got to think of things as an opportunity. An audition’s an opportunity to have an audience.