Quotes by "Bernie Mac"

I don't think the people wanna see me play Clyde Johnson the architect.

Fear is not one of my attributes.

You know you poor when you eatin' breakfast food late. You fryin' toast? At nine o'clock at night? With bacon? You're broke.

When I started in the clubs, I had to work places where didn't nobody else want to work. I had to do clubs where street gangs were, had to do motorcycle gangs, gay balls and things of that nature.

When I get a chance to play golf or go on a boat with good people, take the boat out and put some lobsters on the grill, get the ice-cold beer and the cigars - that's heaven here on earth.

The success of my comedy has been not being afraid to touch on subject matters or issues that everyone else is politically scared of.

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.

My name is Bernard Jeffrey McCullough, but people know me as Bernie Mac. My mama, God rest her soul - she used to call me Beanie. Used to say, 'Don't you worry about Beanie. Beanie gonna be just fine. Beanie gonna surprise everyone.'

I'm a big fan of TV.

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.

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.

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

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'm so black, I leave fingerprints on coal.

When I hit my 20s, I struggled to make it. I got married at 19, and my daughter, Je'Niece, was born a year later. I worked blue collar jobs during the day and comedy clubs at night, and I was earning about $25 a year doing stand-up.

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.

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

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

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.'