Best 73 quotes of Bernie Mac on MyQuotes

All you do as a performer is keep doing it. If you keep doing it, then it depends on why you're doing it. If you're doing something for superficial, monumental reasons and if you're doing it for female attention, or if you're doing it for money, it's like being upset. Only way you can get upset is when you expecting something. If you don't get this award or don't get that award, that because you expect something.

America...Do not touch my TV, my DVD, my stereo, my dual-deck VCR. Do not touch my old school, my new school, my slow jams, my party jams, my happy rap, and you better not touch...My James Brown.

As I got older, I got into all kinds of things in the streets - but for some reason, I never got caught up with the gangs growing up. Everybody dug me, man. I never had problems.

Bernie Mac just says what you think but are afraid to say.

Black audiences are hard. They always think they're better than you. So you got to come with a little extra to satisfy them.

Every time you see a black romance it's over-the-top. There always has to be extreme hostility between the sexes. He has to cheat. She has to show him how independently strong she is, not just as a woman but as a black woman.

Hugs aren't like pieces of pie. Plenty of hugs to go around.

I ain't running for office. I ain't running for nothing.

I always wanted to scuba dive. I used to scuba dive undercover like black Aquaman.

I became the storyteller of South Side Chicago. I used an old Kiwi liquid shoe polish as a microphone. I'd go around the house interviewing everybody, telling stupid jokes, doing voices. I mimicked Sidney Poitier, Sammy Davis Jr., people on 'Laugh-In,' Flip Wilson.

I came up in the community center. I used to be physical director of the South Central Community Center in Chicago on 83rd. It's still there. It used to be around there when I was a kid.

I can act. I've been acting for a long time, but like anything else, don't nobody owe you nothing. You've go to pay your dues. You go from A to Z; you don't go from M to Z.

I don't care about how I look; I'm dedicated to the laughs. You know, I used to be a clown, so - my name was Smoothie the Clown. All the training I had, all my training is geared toward making people laugh, and I didn't care about being cool.

I don't ever watch myself. By watching, you try to perfect yourself, become a robot.

If you mess something up, remember who got you there. Don't be pointing fingers, even if finger-pointing is called for. Only one you got to blame is your own self.

I get facials. I get a manicure and pedicure every week. I get my hair cut, and I oil myself down from head to toe. I got that from my brother. I was so impressed with how high maintenance he was. When he left the room, you could still smell him for an hour.

I hate to compare anything, especially while I'm promoting. I feel that's another disrespect, but 'Ocean's 13' is the best movie I've ever done in my life. No question.

I hate to let people down. I was like that in sports and I was like that in comedy. I was like that at work. When I worked General Motors and stuff like that, when I say something, I mean it.

I have Glocks, .45s, Berettas, Remingtons. I like the marksmanship and the discipline that it takes to be a gun owner. I like the machinery. Being able to take it out and clean it is even more fascinating than having the gun.

I learned hard lessons in life; I had to because I had so much happen: My mother died my sophomore year in high school. The next year, same day, my brother dropped dead. Two years after that, I got married because my girlfriend got pregnant. The year after my wedding, my father - who I had only recently met - died.

I'm an entertainer and I really enjoy entertaining. I think if you're going to really be what you say you are, you have to really live it, work it, practice it, and think it.

I'm funny. I'm a comedian. I'm not a clown.

I'm looking for laughs, you know? If it take me to flip over a table, if I have to go physical comedy, I will do it. But whatever the joke needs at that particular time, is where I'm dedicated to. I'm not into beating somebody down and beating myself up. I don't do insults and things like that. I don't do it - I'm a storyteller.

I'm not afraid to fail. Sometimes when you lose, you win. Sometimes when you win, you lose.

I'm not a politician, I'm a comedian. I know my limitations.

I'm not ashamed to tell the truth about what happened in my family. I think that's what makes my comedy different.

I'm not a star, and I don't want to be a star. Stars fall. I'm an ordinary guy with an extraordinary job.

I'm not a star, I hate that word, and I'm an entertainer. Stars fall, you know, I'm an entertainer. I want to be known as an entertainer.

I'm so black, I leave fingerprints on coal.

I'm very much disciplined because I'm more mature. When I was young I just wanted to live, I could jump, I could run, I was quick and I was relentless.

I think a lot of TV insults the audience.

I took my sports experience to my life on stage. That's why I'm so disciplined. Playing sports, I was always underestimated. I was never picked first to do anything. This always helped me. It taught me how to push myself.

It took me a long time to get to where I'm at, in my career and as a man. I was going through my trials and tribulations in life, and it gave me the strength to tackle things that have come my way.

It was rough being dark. I got heat from my own people more than anyone else. I remember going to my mom and saying, 'Why am I so black?' And she said, 'Because I'm black. You just gotta always work harder than the average bear.'

I've always been a reserved cat. When I play sports, there's people used to get mad at me because I didn't hang out and things like that. I've never been that kind of person. Nothing has changed in that regard. I've never been posse, and all that. I'm a quiet storm.

I want people to say at the end of my day, you know, like I used to say about Sidney Poitier and James Cagney and Joan Crawford and Red Skelton and those guys and Bill Cosby. They did quality and substance. You always remember them.

I want to do something that people can really say, 'Hey, man, that was good, I'm proud of you, I'm proud of that.' 'Pride' and 'Transformers' and things like that.

I want to have fun. Life ain't no dress rehearsal. I want to have fun. I'm a comedian; I ain't no politician. So everything I do is with humor, with love.

I want to play a villain - I can't wait to play a villain.

I want to speak directly to the audience, to say, 'I'm like you - I'm frustrated, I'm not an expert, I don't have a manual on parenting, I make mistakes, I'm selfish too.'

I was a street performer for two years.

I was born October 5, 1957, on the South Side of Chicago, in the Woodlawn area, a neighborhood that hasn't changed much in forty-five years. Our house was on 66th and Blackstone, but the city tore it down when the rats took over.

I was in love with a lot of people, because I was a student of the game of comedy - Carol Burnett, Jack Benny, Red Skelton, Jackie Gleason, Don Rickles, Red Foxx, Moms Mabley - who gets no credit, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, George Kirby. I loved them all, and I used to just take a page out of all of them.

Jerry Weintraub, the producer, might be a pain in the ass, but he really knows how to treat his actors.

Making people laugh is what I've been doing since I was like four or five years old. I still have a lust, I still have a passion. I don't care about how I look, I'm dedicated to the laughs.

My comedy comes from pain. I can't stand to see someone hurting.

My daughter was a beautiful child.

My family are police officers, detectives. My brother Mitch is FBI. Mitch is like that - a stern enforcer.

My girlfriend Rhonda, who's now my wife, I graduated from high school, she got pregnant. My grandfather said, 'You've got to do the right thing.'

My grandmother always told me how you start is how you finish.