Quotes from Paul Mooney

I'm like the Davy Crockett of comedy... after Davy Crockett opened up the West and helped everybody... they didn't need him anymore. I freed a lot of comics... if I never would have done comedy, it would've been a different art form... I'm sure of it.

I don't want affirmative action - too much affirmative, not enough action.

Arizona has always been anti-black.

Whatever that thing is that white people like in blacks, I don't have it. Maybe it's my arrogance or my self-assurance or the way I carry myself, but whatever it is, I don't have it.

You white folks see UFOs in your dreams. You don't hear about Martians in Harlem.

I have such an ego 'cause I'm a double Leo. I can't let go of me, you know, so it's very difficult for me to be somebody else and not me. I'm so into me.

Robin Williams learned technique. He has the technique of being funny.

I got my sense of humor from my grandmother. You know, my grandmother was very funny.

You can't pick when you're touched. You can't pick the time. It just is. It's the reality. What it is, is. I can't change the past. I can only deal with the present and the future.

I can't change the past, but one person can change the future - anything can happen.

When you know who you are, it's harder for people to fuck with you.

I know white folks, they can't take it. Because all of their lives, white people have been told they're the shit. White people always told you 'You're the best, you're everything, you're wonderful, you come from heaven, you're eve-ry-thing, you've never done nothing to nobody, you wear the white hat, you're the good fucking guy,' and the minute they hear [a] a nigga talking about [race] it freaks em.

When you know who you are, it's harder for people to fuck with you. Hollywood is dangerous because the great hobby they have in that town is fucking with other people. Building you up, knocking you down, until finally you are destroyed. They all want to create you and mold you.

I don't fatten frogs to feed snakes. Are you stupid? I taught you better than that. A wet pussy and a dry purse don't match.

Whoever dismisses bigotry or underestimates its impact has never lived under the pain.

What Richard wants is what I want, what everyone in the world wants. To be accepted, to be loved for who we are, not for some playacting phony version of ourselves.

When I imitate middle-class white speech, I see a flicker of unease cross the faces of the white people in the audience. Then, when I go into ghetto riff, the smiles return. They're fine as long as I am making fun of the same kind of people they make fun of, chinks and spics and niggers. But as soon as I start talking about them, I can clear a room.