# Quote

1 The past is a ghost, the future is a dream, and all we ever have is now.

2 Richard Pryor was unique. Many misunderstood his humor. He lit up the hallway, but they didn't understand his use of profanity. He didn't use it just to be using it; he used it in the context of his satire. For instance: In one of his routines, a man wants to be the king of his house, he gets angry and drunk through frustration and takes it out on his wife. Pryor's word choice is in the context of the story, not just to use bad language.

3 My mother was an authority on pigsties. She would look at my room and say, 'This is the worst pigsty I've ever seen'.

4 Some people have said our show is about a white family in blackface. What does that mean? Does it mean only white people have a lock on living together in a home where the father is a doctor and the mother is a lawyer and the children are constantly being told to study by their parents?

5 I don't want sitcom jokes. I don't want jokes about behinds or breasts or pimples or characters saying, 'Oh, my God' every other line. What we want to deal with is human behavior. If we can put it on paper and have it come to life through the actors, then we can have people identifying with us.

6 [on artist, Varnette Honeywood, in 1997]: You can depict segregation, starving, and homelessness, but in Varnette's work, you can see teenagers doing homework, a family cooking a meal, girls doing their hair. Certain art in our culture depicts a down feeling about African American people are treated. They are poor and needy and need help in the Rightings the wrongs. Varnette's work let us not forget the personal joys.

7 Phil Woods said the following: Death is the last thing he wants to do. Don't worry about it! You don't worry about what's going to be the last thing. You know you're going to be dead. So do I. And if I go before you, am I worried? No. Jealous? Yeah.

8 [on Detroit's large population of people in poverty] When I come back and come back and come back I'm making a statement that this is for real. You're about to listen, absorb and to challenge yourself to move in a positive direction. Strength, that's what we're after.

9 I can tell you, from experience, that whoever said "Children and fools cannot lie" was one or the other himself. There's only one way to guarantee that your children are telling the truth: limit your questions to the names of their schools.

10 If you're a parent, the five worst words you can say to your children are, "When I was your age . . . " You were NEVER their age. You were older in the womb.

11 What best defines a child is the total inability to receive information from anything not plugged in.

12 [commenting that many young actors don't give their parents proper credit] I'm still waiting for some actor to win, say, an Oscar . . . and deliver the following acceptance speech: "I would like to thank my parents, first of all, for letting me live."

13 No parent must ever say, "Get the kids out of here, I'm trying to watch TV. The father who does start saying this is likely to see one of his children on the 6:00 news."

14 [on The Cosby Show (1984)] I wanted to give the house back to the parents.

15 Kids will spend $500 on sneakers but won't spend $200 on "Hooked-on-Phonics".

16 [speaking in Washington, DC, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling that eradicated segregated schooling in America] These people marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an education, and now we've got these knuckleheads walking around. The lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal. These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids--$500 sneakers for what? I can't even talk the way these people talk, "Why you ain't," "Where you is?" You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth!

17 Because of my father, I thought my name was Jesus Christ. My brother Russell thought that his name was Dammit.

18 My mother and father ate oink. And they loved oink grease. Lard is what they ate. And they soaked up grease with a biscuit. And they loved butter too. And they sopped up and drank and ate grease. Sausage. Bacon. Ham. They loved it. Fatback. Salt pork. Oink. And I was born with lard all on my head, in the cracks of my arms and the back of my leg. So now my cholesterol is 741. So what? It doesn't bother me that it's 741. You eat what I eat, it's supposed to be. Every once in awhile my left arm will go numb. Okay. But if you shake it, it'll go away.

19 [on the failure of his experimental educational/variety show, Cos (1976)] My first series [I Spy (1965)] ran three years, my second [The Bill Cosby Show (1969)] ran two years and my third [The New Bill Cosby Show (1972)] ran one. This show, if I'm lucky, will run the 13 weeks we contracted for.

20 I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone.

21 Human beings are the only creatures that allow their children to come home.

22 Don't worry about senility--when it hits you, you won't know it.

23 A word to the wise ain't necessary - it's the stupid ones who need the advice.

24 Gray hair is God's graffiti.

25 It's the little things that count when you're a daddy. Like taking your little girl for ice cream. First, you have to teach her about the concept of gravity. I can't tell you how many ice creams I've had to pick up off the floor, rinse off and stick back on my kid's cone. Now that may sound strange, but have you bought ice cream lately? Good gosh, it's up to 75 cents a scoop. A scoop! What's in it, gold?

26 The problem is that your daughter has given her heart to a 15-year-old boy, and a 15-year-old boy does not yet qualify as a human being.