Chris rock quotes

I used to have horrible cars that would always end up broken down on the highway. When I tried to flag someone down, nobody stopped. But if I pushed my own car, other drivers would get out and push with me. If you want help, help yourself - people like to see that.

Why do people do yoga? To clear their minds? I embrace the clutter in my head.

The thing I try to get across to the writers - and I do a lot of writing, too - is that when I do stand-up, nothing I talk about is funny. Everything is really sad and tragic and then I make it funny.

You can't think the thoughts you want to think if you think you're being watched.

If a woman tells you she's twenty and looks sixteen, she's twelve. If she tells you she's twenty-six and looks twenty-six, she's damn near fourty.

Stop the violence! Can't we all just get along?

There are only three things women need in life: food, water, and compliments.

For me, anything goes when I pick up a mike. I'm not trying to hurt people - I try not to get too personal - but I look at myself as a reporter. If you can report on anything that has to do with pop culture, then why can't I make jokes about it? Yes, it hurts. But I figure that laughter sometimes starts from pain. You might wince, but then I know that I'm doing my job. The only thing I can do wrong is not be funny.

A black Christian is like a black person with no memory.

I was raised to believe that you had to do things better than white people in order to succeed. The old black shows were better than the white shows. "The Jeffersons" (1975) was a lot better. "Good Times" (1974) was way funnier. "Sanford and Son" (1972). Now, though, everyone thinks we're equal, so we submit the same shit that everyone else submits. And then we get mad when they won't air it. You got to go back to the old attitude of it has to be twice as good.

Women need food, water, and compliments That's right. And an occasional pair of shoes.

We treat racism in this country like it's a style that America went through. Like flared legs and lava lamps. Oh, that crazy thing we did. We were hanging black people. We treat it like a fad instead of a disease that eradicates millions of people. You've got to get it at a lab, and study it, and see its origins, and see what it's immune to and what breaks it down.

See... Relationships are hard, man. For order, for any relationship to work, both people have to be on the same page, both people have to have the same focus, and we all know what that page is. We all know what that focus is. In order for the relationship to work both people have to have the same focus, and what's that focus? That focus is all about HER! It's all about her!

If you want to prevent abortions, you make sure everyone has health care, a high school education and birth control. Not the exact opposite.

Yeah, I love being famous. It's almost like being white, y'know?

Every town has the same two malls: the one white people go to and the one white people used to go to.

Money is the best lotion in the world.

There are people who would like to get rid of minimum wage. But we have to have it, because if we didn't some people would not get paid money. They would work all week for two loaves of bread and some Spam.

Just to be clear, Ray Rice was not fired for beating his wife. He was fired because a video of him beating his wife was released.

You know you're rich when you have to drive for a half hour to get to your house once you're on your property.

If you're black, you got to look at America a little bit different. You got to look at America like the uncle who paid for you to go to college, but who molested you.

Everything's funny - in the right context and done by the right person.

No matter what kind of backgrounds two men are from, if you go, 'Hey, man, women are crazy,' you've got a friend.

Even if you meet the perfect person, it ain’t gonna be at the perfect time. You’re married, they’re single. That’s right. You’re Jewish, they’re Palestinian. You’re a Mexican, they’re a raccoon. You’re a black woman, he’s a black man.

Every man has to settle down eventually. You know why you gotta settle down eventually? Because you don't want to be the old guy in the club. You know what I'm talking about. Every club you go into, there's always some old guy. He ain't really old, just a little too old to be in the club.

The government doesn't want you to use YOUR drugs, they want you to use THEIR drugs.

People say, 'Why is he bored with her?' Because he's a human being, that's why; same way his wife is bored with him. That is marriage - anything that's supposed to be forever, your going to get bored with it. And there is nothing wrong with it, so don't take it personal; if you are with somebody for ten years and they are not bored with you? Then something is wrong with them.

Anyone who makes up their mind about an issue before they hear the issue is a fool.

I don't get high, but sometimes I wish I did. That way, when I messed up in life I would have an excuse. But right now there's no rehab for stupidity.

I just remember that whenever I got really mad or passionate, like in an argument, people would laugh, and I'd be dead serious. It would happen a lot. So it was like, Gee, I've got something here.

You can't have anything valuable in your house. Niggers will break in and take it all! Everything white people don't like about black people, black people don't like about black people. It's like our own personal civil war. On one side, there's black people. On the other, you've got niggers. The niggers have got to go. I love black people, but I hate niggers. I am tired of niggers. Tired, tired, tired.

A man is only as faithful as his options.

When you meet somebody for the first time, you're not meeting them. You're meeting their representative.

You cannot win in a fight against women, cause men have a need to make sense

I love black people, but I hate niggers.

America is the greatest country in the whole world.

You can never make a woman happy, it's impossible. I've never met a happy woman in my life. They're always complaining about something.

You can only offend me if you mean something to me.

Whatever your woman is into, you better be into. Whatever your man is into, you better be N2. Your partner into church, you better be into church. Your man or woman a crack head, you better be a crack head ... Otherwise it just won't work.

I learned pretty quickly that it's your WORK ETHIC that LEVELS THE PLAYING FIELD. Education helps, but I've met failures who have Ph.D.s. I believe the hardest worker is always going to win.

Tomorrow is more sure than just about anything else in the entire world.

The only plan I have is to not do anything I don't want to do - and to never work just for money.

Relationships, easy to get into, hard to maintain. Why are they so hard to maintain? Because it’s hard to keep up the lie! ‘Cause you can’t get nobody being you. You got to lie to get somebody. You can’t get nobody looking like you look, acting like you act, sounding like you sound. When you meet somebody for the first time, you’re not meeting them. You’re meeting their representative!

I never really write the jokes. I just sit down over a week or two and try to figure out what I want to talk about. Once I narrow that down, then I start working on the material, like "How do I make this stuff funny?"

Do you know what the good side of crack is? If you're up at the right hour, you can get a VCR for $1.50. You can furnish your whole house for $10.95.

Only a woman can make you feel wrong for doing something right.

We Americans commercialize everything. Look at what we did to Christmas. Christmas is Jesus' birthday. Now, I don't know Jesus, but from what I read he was the least materialistic person who ever walked the earth. No bling on Jesus. He kept a low profile and we turned his birthday into the most commercial day of the year. In fact we have a whole Jesus birthday season. And then at the end of it, we have the nerve to have an economist come on TV and say what a horrible Jesus birthday season we had.

Wealth is not about having a lot of money; it's about having a lot of options.

Only married people understand you can be miserable and happy at the same time.

I never wanted to churn it out. Comedians tend to work all the time. They never put it down like musicians who might make an album then take three or four years off to recharge their batteries. Comedians tend to work straight through and they get stale because of that. Even when I didn't have a lot of money I never ever did it unless I had something new to say.

Black movies don't have real names, they have names like Barbershop. That's not a name, that's just a location.

Comedy is the blues for people who can’t sing.

Men lie the most, women tell the biggest lies.

The two best things you can do for a person is have sex or make them laugh.

The material comes from whenever you realize that you and someone else have something in common. So any conversation you've had more than once, anything you see happening to you that you see happening to a friend, you go, Hmmm, that's a situation I can make funny.

You know, some people say life is short and that you could get hit by a bus at any moment and that you have to live each day like it's your last. Bullshit. Life is long. You're probably not gonna get hit by a bus. And you're gonna have to live with the choices you make for the next fifty years.

Kennedy didn't beat Nixon. Satire beat Nixon.

If your work is so smart that only smart people get it, it's not that smart.

If you live with a single parent, you don't see compromise. You witness a grown person living in a world where they do what they want to do. When you are raised by two parents, you are constantly watching compromise take place. Just by observing that, it made me a better person.

I do what I can do when I can do it.

We were so poor my daddy unplugged the clocks when we went to bed.

You know the world's gone mad when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the USA of arrogance and the Germans don't want to go to war !

Every comedian has a moment in his life when he realizes he's a little bit different from everyone else. It's like being the only guy in a movie who sees the ghost. The ghost talks to you and you talk to him. Then you turn to your friend and say, "Hey. Do you see that ghost? And he says, What ghost?"

I've seen women who don't have great relationships with their dads, and it all comes down to this: You have to tell girls you love them every day.

Gay people got a right to be as miserable as everybody else.

I met so many people after I got rich and famous, and I learned that you can't ultimately trust people unless they were your friends when you were broke.

School shootings were invented by blacks... and stolen by the white man.

You know the world is messed up when the tallest man in the NBA is Chinese, the best golfer is black, and the best rapper is white.

Whenever I go out with other married couples, I like to bring along a single crackhead. Just to spice things up.

Men lie the most, women tell the biggest lies... a man's lie is, "I'm at Tony house, I was at Kenny house!" A woman lie is like, "It's your baby!"

If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets.

Everyone has favorite criminals. Mine are pimps. We can all rob a bank; we can all sell drugs. Being a pimp is a whole other thing.

A lot of racism going on in the world right now. Who's more racist? Black people or white people? Black people. You know why? 'Cuz we hate black people too! Everything white people don't like about black people, black people really don't like about black people.

I live in a neighborhood so bad that you can get shot while getting shot.

People are always going to, you know, find something wrong with people who are not the exact same as them. That's just what it is. Black, white, short, tall, religions, whatever. People are bad.

Women can have all the evidence but they still want the confession.

So, to say Barack Obama is progress is saying that he's the first black person that is qualified to be president. That's not black progress. That's white progress.

It's hard for a man to turn down sex... if they chase us, we can't run that fast.

If Bill Gates woke up with Oprah's money he'd jump out the window.

One of my daughters told me the other day, "Kevin Hart is funnier than you, Daddy." I told her, "Does Kevin Hart make you pancakes?"

I used to work at McDonald's making minimum wage. You know what that means when someone pays you minimum wage? You know what your boos was trying to say? "Hey if I could pay you less, I would, but it's against the law."

Pretty girls have problems too.

Actually, I think all addiction starts with soda. Every junkie did soda first. But no one counts that. Maybe they should. The soda connection is clear. Why isn't a presidential commission looking into this? Or at least some guys from the National Carbonation Council.

America is the only place where people go hunting on a full stomach.

My mother got sick when I was rich. And my mother, you know … I don’t really want to get into it, but my mother was sicker than my father. And my mother’s alive. My mother’s fine, OK? I remember going to the hospital to see my mother and wondering, ‘Was I in the right place?’ Like, this was a hotel. Like it had a concierge, man. If the average person really knew the discrepancy in the health care system, there’d be riots in the streets, OK? They would burn this m-therf—ker down!

You can't fake comedy - it's not like a movie, where a director can just cast a pretty face.

Farrakhan got everybody together for the Million Man March and everything. But Farrakhan don't like the Jews. Which is bugged. I get my hair cut on Dekalb Avenue. I never been in a barbershop and heard a bunch of brothers talking about Jews. Black people don't hate Jews. Black people hate white people! We don't got time to dice white people up into little groups. I hate everybody! I don't care if you just got here. "Hey, I'm Romanian." "You Romanian cracker!"

If you properly clean a room, it gets dirtier before it gets cleaner.

So if you're black or brown, you can make money in America, you can get rich in America... but whatever you decide to do, it better be positive, 'cause if one person is harmed, you will be destroyed. You see Oprah, she just be giving away money. She's doing that to keep the Feds off her back.

Yeah, it's unfair that you can get judged by something you didn't do, but it's also unfair that you can inherit money that you didn't work for.

Only dumb people try to impress smart people. Smart people just do what they do.

I can see the humor in just about any situation. After I lost my dad, I realized that none of us should take things too seriously, because everything except death works itself out.

Babies don't know who's rich and who's poor. You love 'em and they're happy.

Here's the thing. When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it's all nonsense. There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they're not as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before.

I say everything's about company. A gourmet meal with an asshole is a horrible meal. A hot dog with an interesting person is an amazing meal.

When you die at 72, no matter what you die of, it's natural causes. Even if you get hit by a truck, it's natural causes. 'Cause if you was younger, you'd have got out the way!

Oprah is rich; Bill Gates is wealthy. If Bill Gates woke up tomorrow with Oprah's money, he'd jump out of a window and slit his throat on the way down saying, 'I can't even put gas in my plane!'

The key to staying together is making sure you guys like each other and need each other.

Nobody's about saving anymore. No one cares about a rainy day anymore. Nobody saves up enough for even an umbrella for a rainy day. It's sad. It really is a new form of slavery. We used to work to be able to afford material things. Now we work for these things. They're the boss. That house you can't afford, that car that's out of your price range, that cellphone that drains your bank account - that's your boss.

I think it’s better to have ideas. You can change an idea; changing a belief is trickier.

You don't pay taxes - they take taxes.

I had always been - everybody kind of likes comedy. I was very interested in comedy, beyond just liking it. I had friends that took apart radios; I wanted to take apart jokes.

A black man will be elected President of the United States. I'm sorry, that's in the year 10,000.

When I hear people talk about juggling or the sacrifices they make for their children, I look at them like they're crazy because sacrifice infers that there was something better to do than the thing - than being with your children.

So, to say Obama is progress is saying that he’s the first black person that is qualified to be president. That’s not black progress. That’s white progress. There’s been black people qualified to be president for hundreds of years. The question is, you know, my kids are smart, educated, beautiful, polite children. There have been smart, educated, beautiful, polite black children for hundreds of years. The advantage that my children have is that my children are encountering the nicest white people that America has ever produced. Let’s hope America keeps producing nicer white people.

I don't write jokes first. I write down topics. I think of what I want to talk about, and then I write the jokes - they don't write me... And even if you don't think it's funny, you won't think it's boring. You might disagree, but you'll listen. And maybe even laugh as you disagree.

A sense of humor is great - it goes a long, long way in a marriage.

Men do not settle down. Men surrender.

You can't be happy that fire cooks your food and be mad it burns your fingertips.

If you’re a black Christian, you have a real short memory.

The thing that surprised me the most is just how much money women that weren't rich were paying for their hair. When you're in a beauty parlor in Harlem next to abandoned buildings and somebody's paying five grand for a weave, that's a bit much. I think this is, in a weird way, part of the health care debate. It's like, hmm, there's people with $2000 weaves that could have bought health care with that weave money.

I literally don't know what I'm going to do next. That's successful.

If you can keep your son off the pipe and your daughter off the pole, you're ahead of the game.

You know, you get famous and you work in these weird jobs and you don't have a lot in common with people. But once you have kids, you have everything in common with everybody.

I'm looking forward to not being tired around my child. My father was tired a lot. I want to play ball with my child without having to grab my shoulder because I'm not physically fit. And I want to really teach my child and become his or her friend.

The advantage that my children have is that my children are encountering the nicest white people that America has ever produced. Let’s hope America keeps producing nicer white people.

Smart is knowing if you're dumb. Knowing when to shut up and to listen to people that are smarter than you.

In the world of animation, you can be anything you wanna be. If you're a fat woman, you can play a skinny princess. If you're short wimpy guy, you can play a tall gladiator. If you're a white man, you can play an Arabian prince. And if you're a black man, you can play a donkey or a zebra.

Don't argue! You cannot win, you cannot beat a woman in a arguement. It's impossble you will not win. Cause men, we are handicapped when it comes to arguing cause we have a need to make sense

No matter what happens or how difficult things become, you will eventually feel better.

Most people don't realize this, but you can eat organic, all natural, gluten-free food without telling everyone around you.

I'm never proper or careful, but I never curse in front of my mother, either.

If you live below your means, you can turn down stuff all the time.

There's math, and everything else is debatable!

Only black people in the whole neighborhood, so let's break it down: Me, I'm a decent comedian, I'm a'ight. Mary J. Blige, one of the greatest R&B singers to ever walk the Earth. Jay-Z, one of the greatest rappers to ever live. Eddie Murphy, one of the funniest actors to ever, ever do it. Do you know what the white man that lives next door to me does for a living? He's a f*****g dentist.