I've been smokin' ever since I was two.

I couldn't imagine not having clean water.

My mom raised me to never have anything control me.

I travel. I do a lot of traveling around the world.

I think my life is a movie and your life reflects your work.

A lot of directors, they're creative, but they're different.

What!? You tell people that, I won't get no more black movies?

That’s the last time I let Wesley Snipes help me out with my taxes!

I am now half Asian. I have learned all the ancient teachings of Buddi.

I will always do stand-up, even if my acting career takes off. Stand-up is my life.

I am Jewish. My real name is Chris Tuckenberg. A lot of people don't know about that.

You see people waving. You dont see people having problems, with each other at least.

I really loved what I was doing being creative and being funny as a stand-up comedian.

A black President? Now come on y'all, we got Clinton, that's close. He got negro tendencies.

I've actually tried to give Brett Ratner dance lessons, but he thinks he already knows how to.

Being a big star and being known, making movies and a lot of money - that really doesn't interest me.

I wanted to cut down on the profanity, because I think I'm funnier without sayin' a lot of cuss words.

You know, we're missing so much as African-Americans and we should be concerned about what's going on in Africa.

Just believe in yourself and work really hard. And when doors open, take advantage of every opportunity you can.

I think all the knowledge and all the travels that I've done, I'm going to do a lot of great work in the future.

A lot of lines in movies were written, but I'm always improvising. Once you get into the scene, it just comes to me.

It was like a family reunion, watching the movie. It's always a good feeling when I can get a screening for my family.

One thing about me, when I make a decision about something, I realize when you make choices in life, that dictates your life.

You don't know who you messing with man, I slap people for fun. That's what I do man! You wanna play rough, huh, I kill for fun!

I love to talk about people I've met being an entertainer. All my encounters in life - I roll it all into an hour and 30 minutes.

I tell people that stand-up's like golf: you gotta do it every day to get it down - or at least three times a week to get it down.

You got to control your own destiny. You got to keep writin different stuff. Keep switchin up and never do the same thin too many times.

When you're first starting out, you want to keep making good movies. When you're young and you're black, you do a bad movie and you're through.

It takes intelligence to make real comedy, and it takes a reality base to create all that little stuff I like to do that makes you giggle inside.

This country is just that great that the opportunities are there for a Hispanic president, a black president or any other race for a president, yes.

You loan your friend money. You see them again, they don't say nothin' 'bout the money. 'Hi, how ya doin'? How's ya mama doing?' Man, how's my money doin'?

So I kept it to myself. Then some of my classmates started to come down to the comedy club, taking a girl out, and they started finding out I was a stand-up comedian.

Making people laugh is giving, and it's healing, too, when people can go up to the movies and forget about their problems. It's a good thing. That's why I want to work.

I couldn't tell people what I wanted to do because I was from Atlanta. You don't tell people you're gonna be a comedian in Atlanta. That means you ain't gonna do nothing.

Georgia was a great place to live, but I wanted to get out because I knew the opportunities for what I was doing - stand-up comedy and eventually acting - were in Los Angeles.

I want to do movies that mean something, that make people laugh and cry great movies, period-piece movies and work with the best people out there, who bring the best out of me.

I want to keep working, I want to keep doing my humanitarian stuff around the world, shining light on different places that have problems. Keep making movies, make people laugh.

I love traveling. It not only opens my mind up, but it also allows me to use my fame in another way through humanitarian works and stuff, and being an influence around the world.

I think you've got to have a depth, a deeper depth to take stand-up into acting, but I think it really helps you as a stand-up to home into different characters and stuff easily.

Comedy comes from a place of hurt. Charlie Chaplin was starving and broke in London, and that's where he got his character 'the tramp' from. It's a bad situation that he transformed into comedic one.

Day-to-day life is a lot of work. I work a lot on stand-up stuff, and then day-to-day life and, you know, just living. It's always different. Try to work out, try to stay in shape, and try to have some fun.

It's crazy because people expect you to be funny all the time and every day is not a funny day. I go to funerals and people are like 'tell a joke' and 'say one of your lines in a movie.' It's a funeral, man!

I get on stage and talk about different stuff in my life and what I've been through and what I think about the world. It's picking out highlights of things and how I became who I am and how my daddy raised me.

I feel like every time I go out I want to do a good job. I want people to say that he's just as good at stand-up as he is in some of the movies I've seen him in, so I try to do the best every time I go out there.

I feel like every time I go out, I want to do a good job. I want people to say that he's just as good at stand-up as he is in some of the movies I've seen him in, so I try to do the best every time I go out there.

I believe that I'm going to have a long career, as long as I want, and I think by me going out into the world living a little bit made me... gave me more depth, so when I do go, going into movies is much easier for me.

I think real life reflects your movies. In your life, you pick stuff that influences what movie roles you wanna pick. I think if you've got an interesting life, you wanna do interesting movies about interesting things.

I've got a big closet of scripts, and a big stack of scripts on the side of my desk, because you get a whole bunch. Nothing's going to be perfect, and I realize that; but I am a perfectionist, so you go through a lot of stuff.

I've lived a little bit and traveled the world and experienced a lot of things that I can play any role, and I think I can get into stuff that people never thought I would ever do because of my experiences and growth as a person.

I reenact everything. I love to paint a picture for my audience. I'm a lot like Richard Pryor in that aspect. I do a lot of acting on stage, acting out and visualizing stuff. I love to do that. I'm into it so much, it just comes out of me.

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