Bernie Mac's Quotes

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.

Bernie Mac don't sugarcoat.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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 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 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 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 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.