Quotes

Don't exercise much. It's not really funny. Jim Carrey looks like he's in pretty good shape, but traditionally, funny guys have never been buff. Why do people do yoga? It clears their minds. I embrace the clutter in my head. I like it. What funny guy's got it all together?

I love music. Music is the soundtrack to the crappy movie that is my life.

It's my real name. My mother's name is Rose Rock. It was the worst name as a kid to have. They called me Piece of the Rock, Plymouth Rock, Joe Rockid, and Flintstones. Now they call me Mister Rock.

A man is basically as faithful as his options.

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

How do I say this without sounding like an egomaniac? I don't know a comedian that sells more seats than me in the red states and blue states, so I don't see where I have to change that much.

I like the tradition of the Oscars. I like that some of the greatest comedians ever have hosted the show.

Hollywood's just not funny. You walk around and think 'Where's the funny at?' It's not there - all there is is a bunch of directors and actors walking around. I like going into a diner and meeting real people. Funny is where the real people are.

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.

People want comedians to be funny. I mean I love Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) but it ain't a better performance than in Dumb and Dumber (1994). I can do serious roles sometimes in other people's movies but not in one of my own. I don't wanna ask my fans to come and not laugh at me: "Hey! Come on, let's go see Chris Rock not be funny!".

America is the most powerful country in the world and I think every intelligent country should be concerned about what's going on here. I've got no beef with Brits objecting to our election outcome. I applaud that. I'll tell you right now, Americans don't care about what's going on in other countries.

I always say about my daughters, they save me from my miserable self. They take me out, you know, a comedian, you could live in your head a lot. And you're writing and you're doubting. But when I'm with my kids and my family, it's all about them.

Now that I have children, I realize taking care of my children is more fun than anything in the whole world.

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.

You know, just right place right time, lucked up. Thank God for animation. I can turn down a lot of movies now.

I'm a nerd. I'm a little guy... the last guy you'd expect in a romantic movie.

Guys play characters that won't grow up and something catastrophic happens and they have to grow up to save the day -- that's pretty much what today's comedy is about,

The best part is just having a partner. There is no real worst part. I'm not going to say there's a worst part. I mean I'm a comedian - comedians like to work alone. So maybe I'm not the ideal guy to be married to, in that sense.

I've been married for 10 years and, you know, it's hard, you spruce it up and you go places. How do you spruce up anything? Artificially. You go places and do things.

I love having somebody there - that companion thing. You know who you're going to eat with, who you're going to see a movie with.

I'm more patient. I'm less of a recluse. I've been on TV for a long freaking time, and it can definitely isolate you. You get to where you only have things in common with people in the business, and kids open you up to a new world. You have something in common with just about everybody. I think I'm a better artist. Everything I've done since I've had kids is better than the stuff I did before I had kids.

I'm happy if everybody else is. I'm a big brother, the oldest. If you're happy and I'm not, I'm cool with that. If I'm happy and you're not, I'm sad.

I used to watch my father go to work every day and come home and be so beat. We had seven kids. I always wondered what he really wanted to do. Now that I'm older and have my own kids, I realize there's nothing better than to work for your kids. I'm sure he got more gratification from his work than I do. My father was feeding his kids every week, paying the heating bills. If he didn't work, then it didn't get done. There's a tremendous amount of gratification from that. And a tremendous amount of pressure, too.

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.

All people naturally hate. My kid bites people now. I didn't teach my kid to bite anybody. Kids say mean stuff. Only through love do we get this evil out of them. Only through love and structure and discipline do they not hate. The kids that hate didn't learn anything, that's the problem.

I always say there's no more little girls, just boys with (breasts). Girls act like boys nowadays. Teenage girls, they go after boys. They're predatory just like boys. My goal is to keep my girls, girls.

I'm like the Hulk on stage. It's way over the top. That's Bizarro Chris. Sometimes I get off stage and go "What did I say?!" I'll watch one of my [stand-up] specials a year later and go "Eww, that was mean".

I love my life, but I don't think I'm any happier than my younger brother Andre, who drives a garbage truck.

It's weird with stand-up comedy. It doesn't really translate worldwide. I want to figure out how do I make it worldwide. Do a special in Africa. Can't beat that. Pull that off, then I will have done something.

I'm a rap comedian the same way Bill Cosby is a jazz comedian, Cosby's laid back. I'm like, bang, bang bang, right into it.

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.".

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.".

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.

I like talking about subjects that aren't funny in the first place and making them funny. So anything down and depressing is something I'll talk about.

Women would rule the world - if only they'd stop bitchin' about each other.

I don't think my comedy is that political. It's more social. But whatever. When you make comedy and you do stand-up, you work alone. Movies have to go under so much scrutiny. A stand-up special is a vision, and a movie is a consensus in a lot of ways.

It's no different. It's not like I ever cursed around my mother or anything. I never had a hard time turning it on and off. It's like you enter another country - sometimes you're in a cursing country and then you're in a kid's country.

At home, [we play] a lot of Disney stuff -- _Raven [Raven-Symoné],High School Musical (2006) soundtrack. My kids love Beyoncé, but there are a few songs I can't let them listen to -- they're so materialistic! They're all about chinchilla coats and BBS Slims [cell phone]. I'd rather have them listening to a protest song!

I think if I were to get as big as I could get, it does change your mind-state. I think like the little man. I think like the underdog. I don't want to change that.

There's no interference in stand-up. It's all the things it's hard to get in film: I get to have a wife, I get to have kids. I get to be sexual. I get to grow. I get to be a man.

I shouldn't be able at this late date to go into a club and be better than guys who are there every night. Nobody really wants to be a stand-up, they want to get on TV. Everybody wants to be Seinfeld (1989), nobody wants to be Jerry Seinfeld.

You want to track Hollywood careers, look in the real estate section. You see a guy buy a house that costs $6 million, and you can literally start counting the days until he starts doing crappy movies.

[on _Head of State (2003)_ ()] I was directing it for the wrong reasons, maybe out of fear.

It's the worst script I've ever gotten. The rap group was called Nubian Nation Pussy Patrol! I'd have been happier getting an envelope full of anthrax. - on receiving the script for Marci X (2003).

Nobody's good. I hate it. I truly hate it. I mean, there's a lot of guys doing stuff I admire, but stand-up-wise I feel very alone. I really miss [Bill] Hicks. I wish I could have put him on my show. And I really miss Sam [Kinison] a lot. Richard [Pryor]'s sick... It's like you get here and then, oh wait a minute, there's nobody here any more. I feel like the guy who finally got into Studio 54, three years too late, "Duh, where are all the famous people?".

The only reaction that frightens me is people not laughing. It's extraordinary to me when you get a laugh. That you can go in front of a bunch of people you never met before, you can say some stuff and they all laugh in unison - that's amazing. It's a miracle.

[on the success of Chris Rock: Bring the Pain (1996)] I thought, hopefully this will be better than other HBO specials, and I'll get whatever rewards come with that. Maybe somebody will want me to do a sitcom - if I'm lucky. Next thing they were talking about it on C-Span, and I'm like, Huh? My only goal was to do a show that was good enough that when I played a club, I wouldn't have to promote it on radio.

I think what kind of person you are during success is who you are. It's easy to be nice in failure and when you're broke - then you really need a lot of help from people. But after you win some money, that's the person you really are, because now you can be mean to people. You can act like an asshole. I've seen people trip out again and again. A lot of times this behavior, when you're up, will determine if you get another shot someday, because things in this business always go down. I want them to say, "He was a nice guy during the whole process. He never did the entourage thing." Because that ain't funny. It's annoying.

[on being a black student in a predominately white school] My life was Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995). I would get beat up every day, called "nigger" and spit on. You get used to it. I couldn't fight back, I was so outnumbered, so I would just stand there and take it. The worst part is that, after a while, your spirit is broken. I'd go to my parents and say, "Take me out of here." But they thought it was a better school. I guess it toughened me up.

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.