I get that racism exists, but it’s not a catalyst for my content. I don’t need to talk about race to have material. 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.

I’ve been doing comedy longer than I haven’t been doing comedy, as I was performing for three years before I even got on ‚The Tonight Show.‘ There’s truly nothing like it; it’s intense and exhilarating, even though it looks so casual.

A dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.

Black people comprehend the South. We understand its weight. It has rested on our backs… I knew that my heart would break if ever I put my foot down on that soil, moist, still, with old hurts. I had to face the fear/loathing at its source or it would consume me whole.

When I’m on stage, it’s really intense. My mind is going a million miles an hour, trying to remember my act, trying to say it all the right way. It’s funny how different it looks and how it’s happening. There are three Fellini circuses in my head, and outwardly it looks like I’m going to get a bagel.

When you’re traveling constantly, every day you become inspired, and it shows in my work, sonically, lyrically, visually. Conversations with women with different accents and stories told in those accents. I like to create characters based on different people I’ve met, and relationships. I like to tell stories loosely based on real-life events.

I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he’s African American.

One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves.

I think what you’re seeing is a profound recognition on the part of the American people that gays and lesbians and transgender persons are our brothers, our sisters, our children, our cousins, our friends, our co-workers, and that they’ve got to be treated like every other American. And I think that principle will win out.

Japan’s very interesting. Some people think it copies things. I don’t think that anymore. I think what they do is reinvent things. They will get something that’s already been invented and study it until they thoroughly understand it. In some cases, they understand it better than the original inventor.

I was very into making the Big Artistic Statement – it had to be innovative; it had to be cutting edge. I was desperately keen on being original.

Caesar was a man of great common sense and good taste, meaning thereby a man without originality or moral courage.

No one has been barred on account of his race from fighting or dying for America, there are no white or colored signs on the foxholes or graveyards of battle.

The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God – if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That’s what I think.

The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world’s definitions.

At the end of the day, I want to be part of the same conversation as Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, Dave Chappelle, Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor.

I never wanted to write the sort of song that said, ‚Look at how abnormal and crazy and out there I am, man!‘

When you’re born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you’re born in America, you get a front row seat.

I was born. When I was 23 I started telling jokes. Then I started going on television and doing films. That’s still what I am doing. The end.

Doing Saturday Night Live definitely affects my relationship with my girlfriend and with my family, because you feel so much pressure to do well that night. But I think everyone’s grown to accept that and so they give me my space at the show.

The philosophical idea that there are no more distances, that we are all just one world, that we are all brothers, is such a drag! I like differences.

Right now, when we’re hearing so much disturbing and hateful rhetoric, it is so important to remember that our diversity has been – and will always be – our greatest source of strength and pride here in the United States.

It’s easy being a humorist when you’ve got the whole government working for you.

George Carlin’s album, ‚Class Clown,‘ came out when I was in high school. I memorized a lot of that album. I’d come home from school, put it on, and listen over and over. I started memorizing it. I don’t even know why. I loved it so much I memorized it.

We still have many neighborhoods that are racially identified. We still have many schools that even though the days of state-enforced segregation are gone, segregation because of geographical boundaries remains.

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that oral teachers and sign teachers found it difficult to sit down in the same room without quarreling, and there was intolerance upon both sides. To say ‚oral method‘ to a sign teacher was like waving a red flag in the face of a bull, and to say ‚sign language‘ to an oralist aroused the deepest resentment.

Yup, the whole birther movement was racist.

Humorists can never start to take themselves seriously. It’s literary suicide.

If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your own.

If you were going to shoot a mime, would you use a silencer?

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

I believe that God breathed life into every person and that every person is made in the image of God and you have accept them as they are, on their journey. I’m not here to preach hate or push people down.

No intelligent black man or black woman in his or her right black mind wants white boys and white girls coming to their homes to marry their black sons and daughters.

To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.

I make fun of situations and try and find the humor in things, but it’s never at the expense of the other guy.

I grew up in a very nice house in Houston, went to private school all my life and I’ve never even been to the ‚hood. Not that there’s anything wrong with the ‚hood.

The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?

People from all over the world come to London wanting to make their own mark on it, and they add to the energy and vitality of the capital. It’s got a bit busier since the ’60s, but the more the merrier!

Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.

What the Pope thinks of being gay does not matter to the world. It matters to the people who like the Pope and follow the Pope… It is not a reflection of all religious people.

Our country does not believe in the concept of your God and my God. We believe that all gods are one. We have different ways of accepting Him. All ways lead to Him.

To start with, I love New York… It’s a little bit of the whole world… In New York, the whole world comes to you.

I don’t like Los Angeles. The people are awful and terribly shallow, and everybody wants to be famous but nobody wants to play the game. I’m from New York. I will kill to get what I need.

The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.

Woman was God’s second mistake.

All of us are so mixed. My great-grandfather was white.

From things that have happened and from things as they exist and from all things that you know and all those you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive, and you make it alive, and if you make it well enough, you give it immortality.

Like it or not, there are a lot of dance teachers in this country who respect me, whether they personally like me or not.

I love making people laugh. And I love laughing.

God tells us not to judge one another, no matter what anyone’s sexual preferences are or if they’re black, brown or purple.

People ask me where I got my singing style. I didn’t copy my style from anybody.

When you’re in comedy, people always come up and say, ‚Oh, it must be so hard.‘ It really isn’t hard unless you’re not good at it. If you can do it, its really kind of fun and easy.

I do love the films I’ve done in the past. I work hard in my movies and my friends work hard and we’re trying to make people laugh and I’m very proud of that.

There is no scriptural basis for segregation.

To such an extent does nature delight and abound in variety that among her trees there is not one plant to be found which is exactly like another; and not only among the plants, but among the boughs, the leaves and the fruits, you will not find one which is exactly similar to another.

We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders.

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

I never wanted to look pretty on stage and sing about something we’ve all heard about before.

A family with the wrong members in control; that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.

We believe that every single child has boundless promise, no matter who they are, where they come from, or how much money their parents have. We’ve got to remember that. We believe that each of these young people is a vital part of the great American story.

The next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department.