Bernie Mac Quotations

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

If I can tell someone a story that makes them bend over and laugh, that's bigger than anything else.

I can't build myself by beating somebody down.

When you're offstage, that's the footprint. That's the man God's gonna judge.

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

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

There's no success story. Everybody's got a ghetto story. You always want to make it bigger than what it is.

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 love my daughter, but there's a certain feeling, a certain emotion when you got a granddaughter, you know?

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.

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 don't have no story. Everybody wants this Hollywood story, but the world don't owe you nothing, man. It's what you owe the world.

Only way you can you get upset is when you expecting something.

You don't see me in Los Angeles a lot. I go back home. Because I can't play the game. I can't - my tolerance - I know I'm getting old; I'll be 50 this year. And you know how I know I'm getting old? 'Cause my tolerance level is low.

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.

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.

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

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.'

People like rumors. They're going to say things like, 'You was at the club with Lil' Kim, and you and Kanye West got into a fist fight.' You can't get upset. You've got to keep hope alive.

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.

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

That's the whole key to anything: Don't be afraid to fail. And Bernie Mac is not afraid to fail.

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.'

Stand-up is what I am; stand-up is what made me.

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'm so black, I leave fingerprints on coal.

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.

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

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

I came from a place where there wasn't a lot of joy.

I was good at keeping my mother from crying.

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 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'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.

You know, every time it comes, every time that light comes on or every time that camera comes on, every time that microphone comes on, the Mac Man seek and destroy.

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 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 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.

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 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 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.

Like a lot of black people, I grew up straight po'. Wasn't no question about whether we was po', either. If you really wanted to know, all you had to do was look in our refrigerator.

I'm an ordinary guy with an extraordinary job.

Whatever success I've had, I always like to top it.

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

I don't need to pat myself on the back until my arm breaks. I don't need any of that.

I was a street performer for two years.

Why I was so intrigued with Red Skelton was because he was able to make you cry and laugh and the same time. That was power.

You can't be a doctor if you don't know the entire parts of the body.

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

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.'

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

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

I know doing movies is where I need to be. That's where my audience wants to see me.

I love who I am. I love what I've become.

I think a lot of TV insults the audience.

It's a pleasure to work with someone who is just as strong as you are.

My humor had changed from foolishness to making sense.

Bernie Mac is relentless. That's one thing I like about him. He's not PC. He doesn't care what you think. He's going out there to please that audience.

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.

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 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 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've introduced myself with comedy, and once you've introduced yourself as something, that's where people keep you. That's where people like to hold you.

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

I have so much respect for what's funny.

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

The one thing about comedy, making it become a part of you, the audience loves it, because you become part of them.

The two sides of Bernie - that's a quiet weapon that I have.

We're so politically correct; we take things so seriously.

When I go onstage, I want to relieve your mind, your pressures.

Why do people love Richard Pryor so much? 'Cause he had problems.

You're never going to see me playing a buffoon.

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

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.

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.

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 wasn't disciplined at all. As good of an athlete as I was, I was not disciplined. Had I had the drive that I have in comedy, and acting, and writing, that's why I knew it just wasn't right for me.

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.

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.

You have to meet all of the challenges, big and small. Because how you start is how you finish.

Okay, first rule of this carpool. No breaking wind in my car. The only gas that Bernie Mac want to be smelling is unleaded.

Bernie Mac don't sugarcoat.

Shut up before I drop yo ass off at Koreatown. Now hold on, America, don't start writing no letters. I'm just kidding. But am I lying?

I've never been no superficial cat.

I've been in training for stardom.

That's the whole key to anything: Don't be afraid to fail. And is not afraid to fail.

They say if you don't have your health you ain't got nothing, but the truth is you ain't got nothing if you don't have no one to worry about your health.

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.

My daughter was a beautiful child.

Comedy has been so good to me.

Sometimes when you lose you win, son. Failure is just life's way of preparing you for success.

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.

Suffering is a good teacher. It keeps you in its grip until you've learned your lesson.

The Bernie Mac Show' is my life. It's the truth, and I'm not ashamed of a minute, an hour, or a second of my life.