I respect everybody. You don't have to earn my respect. You earn my disrespect.
Charlie Murphy
If you can't laugh at yourself, you don't deserve to laugh at anybody else.
Every barbershop has a guy who wrecks shop every time he comes in. He has the whole barbershop laughing. That doesn't mean he's a comedian.
Back when Sammy Davis, Jr. and Dean Martin were doing roasts, they were all friends. They knew each other's children, each other's wives, each other's families. It wasn't about being disrespectful. It was about being funny.
The whole thing with the Rick James story sketch and the Prince story sketch - I recounted my past, you know? - and that's what I was doing. It's not like I sat down and said I want to come up with a great story about Rick James. That stuff really happened.
There's no one on the road that I tried to pattern myself after. There's no one in history that I tried to pattern myself after. Because one thing I was told that in standup you want to develop your own voice.
As a man, if you lose your wife, it's a horrible experience, especially with kids. But when one person passes away and you're still alive, people still depend on you - that's what you have to lean on.
Everything was a lot more challenging for me because of who my brother was. If I were in the film, someone would had said that I got the part because Eddie's in the film. If I wrote a script, folks would say that I didn't really write that: that Eddie did and I threw my name on it.
I went to jail for a year when I was 17. When I got out, my mother took me to the recruiting office, and I spent the next six years in the Navy.
Most actors can't write. Most writers can't act. Most comedians can't act. I can do all three, so why wouldn't I do that?
I may make you angry or make you feel sorry for me, but in the end, you appreciate my show because it's not one-dimensional.
I would say I was an all-American teenager.
If I'm afraid of something, I'll deal with it and get past it.
I never went around saying who my brother was. Everybody else was doing that.
I think I have had a remarkable and colorful life, so I decided to share it.
If you look at my acting career, I never played a role that was similar to anything my brother played. I was always cast as the bad guy or a gangster, because my brother didn't do those kind of roles.
Before stand-up, I didn't even have an agent. Once I started doing stand-up - boom. I got an agent. In fact, I got three agents. I got a lawyer. Now I get taken seriously.
I wasn't drawn to comedy: it was drawn to me - from fighting in school to going to jail, then joining the military and getting into Hollywood.
I don't like to go to regular, big stores - I don't like to wear anything anybody else does.
I guess I must have a good metabolism.
When I first started, it was a dare. Someone basically said, 'You're a tough guy... but I'll bet you won't get on a microphone in front of a bunch of people.' I was terrified, but I did it. Once I broke the ice and got onstage and got some laughs, I thought, 'That's not so bad.'
At the end of the day, when Charlie Murphy ain't here no more, I'll have a body of work that people can laugh and remember me by.
I've never felt like I was living in anyone's shadow. My life was what it was.
The audience is my hardest and best critic.
I feel blessed to be able to do my stand up comedy all over the world, because some people never even leave New York.
Richard Pryor - he had stories, he had characters, he had short jokes, and he had bits. He had all those things. Eddie Murphy has all those things, and he can sing. A comedian is a bunch of stuff; it's not just one area.
I was a bodyguard for somebody I love. That's not a good combination. I was always ready to beat somebody up.
There's only going be one Richard Pryor. You know how many came out after Richard Pryor and died trying to be compared to him? Or Bernie Mac? You got to be like you.
There's a lot of racism when I was in the Navy, and I had to deal with that.
I don't hang out with soft cats.
I've always had the luck or blessing that someone would say, 'I liked what you did in that movie. I'd like you to be in my movie.'
I wake up every morning, and I am ecstatic.
I look at the world and I find the funny in it, because there's funny in everything. No matter how ugly it may be, there's a funny way to look at it.
When you're in the military, you get accustomed to sleep deprivation.
Prior to the 'Chappelle's Show,' you know, no one would even listen to me, in the frame of, 'Oh, he is trying to be funny.'
If you don't know things, you know, you just go by your instinct.
Gangs are formed by kids who want love.
I was always proud of my brother. He helped me tremendously, but we're family, so we were never in his shadow.
Aaron McGruder is a straight-up G. I call him Champ.
I don't have beef with anyone, only martians.
It's easy to go on television and say horrible things about somebody. And it's cowardly.
Other comedians got love for me. But don't get it twisted - I'm not a clown, I'm a comedian and work hard as an artist. Clowns go to college.
I used to irritate people. I'd give them a hard time, and when it drove them crazy, that was funny to me.
I have a very good talent at finding out exactly what it is about yourself that you don't like and then keep bringing it up.
I like to tease people. I hate when people do it to me, though.
When I was nine, my father passed away. It's one thing when you're a kid and your father wasn't there for you. My father was there, and then he was taken away.
When you don't have money, you fall under the influence of anybody who has the appearance of having it.
In the Navy, you're around a lot of people from different parts of the country. They've got different accents, different upbringings. I learned to love country-western music.
As far as stand-up comedy, I got into the business later than most, yeah.
When I was nine years old, I was in a movie called, 'Landlord' with Pearl Bailey, Lou Gossett, and Beau Bridges.
