There's always a message in my comedy.

Arizona has always been anti-black.

You know who you are. If my mother is a nun and someone comes up to me and they go, 'Your mother is a prostitute.' It is not going to bother me, because I know my mother is a nun, she's not a prostitute.

Whatever that thing is that white people like in blacks, I don't have it. Maybe it's my arrogance or my self-assurance or the way I carry myself, but whatever it is, I don't have it.

I think about never losing my voice, never giving in, never selling out, always keeping black, always sticking to the street. Staying neighborhood and not Hollywood.

America has a rap sheet. You can't police the world and tell the world how to act when you're just as bad yourself.

I'm passionate about what I do. I'd be naive to be passive.

When you know who you are, you know who you are. That's the real dangerous thing in Hollywood, because they all want to create you and mold you.

I've never seen anyone more messed up over success than Richard Pryor. For him, it's a constant battle between success in the white world and keeping it real for his black self.

I'm like the Davy Crockett of comedy... after Davy Crockett opened up the West and helped everybody... they didn't need him anymore. I freed a lot of comics... if I never would have done comedy, it would've been a different art form... I'm sure of it.

If you have money and you have fame, but you don't have any confidence in your blackness, then it's all for nothing.

Hillary Clinton could say she was a woman and running for president. And Sarah Palin could say she was a woman and running for vice-president. But Obama couldn't say, 'I'm black and I'm running for president.' It couldn't come out of his mouth. He couldn't say that because, if he did, he'd lose votes.

I could drop dead tomorrow, the truth will be here. Truth is forever; when you read our history, truth is forever, and it always outs itself.

I love Obama because he is proof all black people don't look alike. Nobody every told me, 'Good morning, Mr. President.' We don't all look alike.

When they were making black films in the '60s and the '70s, everyone knew their place, if you get my drift. You understand? Everyone knew the rules, and everyone knew their place. Everyone knew what to say. They had the written rules in Hollywood film, and the unwritten rules.

An audience can be like a pack of wolves.

My comedy is a nuclear bomb inside my mind. It's a weapon that's never been tested. It just blows up and flattens everybody.

I like comedy, I mean, in all forms.

You got to remember that slavery's very complex. It has a lot of levels to it.

Comedians period, in general, have demons, and myself included.

Listen, we've got one little ol' black president, and white folks are upset, but they've had 43.

You white folks see UFOs in your dreams. You don't hear about Martians in Harlem.

Tennessee Williams knew about the South, but he would clean it up and lie about it.

I'm as American as apple pie.

I have nothing to do with racism in America; it was here when I got here.

I was born a comic.

What does it mean to be too black for Hollywood? It's self-explanatory. Hollywood has certain kinds of blacks that they like.

There are still plenty of movie people peddling black stereotypes. I guess Tyler Perry's probably the most massively successful.

If you're happy with what you're doing, then you don't get bored.

Handshaking means, 'I don't have a weapon.'

Hollywood doesn't even have respect for itself. Hollywood lies to itself.