Quotes from Bernie Mac

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

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.

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

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

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'm not a star, and I don't want to be a star. Stars fall. I'm an ordinary guy with an extraordinary job.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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 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 was a street performer for two years.

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.

I'm an ordinary guy with an extraordinary job.

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 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 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.

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

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

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

Bernie Mac don't sugarcoat.

Bernie Mac is happy.