J. B. Smoove Quotes

I could never live with you; not 'cause I'm racist or nothing. It's just 'cause as a black man in America, I need to have someone I can come home and complain about white people to. And that just don't work with my white wife.

I'm sure back in the Greek days or the Roman Empire days, when guys fought in arenas and were fighting lions, people were talking smack. Every era in history has someone talking smack. No way you can have talent and not proclaim your victory.

If I had signed my fourth season of SNL, I wouldn't have ever had the opportunity to do Curb Your Enthusiasm. If my buddy OG Pearson wouldn't have passed away, I wouldn't have been in L.A. for his memorial, and I would've never auditioned for Curb.

It's great when a director like Cameron Crowe can take what you do and fit it into what he's doing. If someone's a fan of you already, they can take what you do and make it work for what they're doing. You don't know their vision, and you're thinking, 'How is this guy going to take what I do and make it work in this movie?'

I just always found it easier to be the same guy onstage as you are offstage.

My life is gardening, cleaning around the house and power washing.

If a director brings a guy to their movie who does improv, they've got to let him do what he does - otherwise it's like bringing Michael Jordan to your basketball team and telling him to just pass the ball and don't shoot.

I think comedy evolves constantly. I reinvent myself all the time. I always find a way to entertain myself because I truly believe you have to entertain yourself in order to relate it the right way to your audience.

You gotta improvise in life. You gotta improv if the police pull you over.

True Yankees fans know an up-and-coming player when they see one.

I have my website, The Ruckus, which is an Internet site, similar to the Funny or Die format, where people post funny videos. I get a chance to rate their videos; they get a chance to blog and kick it with me.

You have to fail, man, but you cannot allow failure to stop you from doing what you must do. Failing is just as good as succeeding in a lot of ways. It's how you react to it all. You can react to success the wrong way and be a total failure. Or you can react to losing with your whole heart, learn from it, and be a huge success. In stand-up, I've learned to know when I'm burning it up or when I'm being so-so. That's experience. I learn every single time I'm on a stage.

I have to satisfy my audience.

You can't let people take advantage of you. Go get that ass.

Mel Gibson is losing it. I don't know how people still supporting this dude's movies like it's all good. That dude is nuts. All you gotta do is shut him down and don't support any of his movies.

I would only take a role that I know I'm comfortable in and I can do. I've turned down plenty of things because I'd feel it's not me, and I wouldn't want to come on someone's project and flip that.

You ever taste some damn chicken so horrible, that you wished the chicken would show up at your house and show your lady how to cook him?

Being a parent is about your survival. Surviving the terrible two's is the most important thing.

I'm trying to be the Jay-Z of comedy one day. I don't know if there's any comedy moguls out there, but I would love to be the first comedy mogul.

I believe, even when I'm doing my standup or my acting or whatever I'm doing, I believe in painting pictures.

I did a club one night - the speakers were old as hell. My jokes were coming out in black and white.

I wouldn't want to be someone's roommate, that's for sure. You can't do certain things: you can't leave the bathroom door open ... you can't put your feet on the couch, you can't hide stuff in the couch.

I may even show up behind the camera. I love to put things together; I love to give direction. I have a great eye for pace.

Damn! This flight attendant treating us like we won these first class tickets in a contest.

Remember Tupperware? That was the toughest stuff ever. Why can't they make a phone out of Tupperware?

I'm a thief. I steal scenes, I steal opportunities. I am the ultimate thief. I got sticky fingers.

You know what I like? I like classic stuff. I like 'The Andy Griffith Show' - the variety of characters was so amazing to me.

I should be European, man. I'm long and lean. I'd look good in a trench coat.

'The ruckus' is different experiences you go through throughout your life which builds your ruckus points up - your tolerance. You've got to have a high tolerance for dealing with stuff all the time.

For me, standup will always be some part of my life, and other things will move around and find their place.

I'm street smart. You can't con me. But that's just from living in New York. Now if a guy came from Mississippi somewhere, Ohio somewhere, to New York City for the first time, he don't have the street smarts. You can take him.

All you wanna do in life is do what you do well. That's when you're happiest.

Sometimes you can make friends, and sometimes you can take friends. Sometimes people want to be friends with you, and you gotta be like, 'Okay, I can deal with this person's personality and be their friend, but not necessarily do I have to change who I am. I'm not gonna change myself to be their friend.'

I admire Russell Simmons. He is a successful dude that has done a little bit of everything. He keeps it moving, and he's still doing things. Larry David is also amazing. He is honest and blunt. A creative genius.

Sometimes you got to put somebody in their place, let them know that you mean business and you're a grown ass man.

You want your lady to be a contortionist. What man wouldn't want a lady who's a contortionist?

It's an ongoing joke that a black man is always the first one to get killed in movies.

Women put guys through tests all the time.

People love things about Hollywood. People love to see the inside of what's going on.

As far as standup, everybody has a vehicle they are driving. If what you do works, it's like playing golf. If you can master that one swing over and over again, you will be successful. That's what standup is. You have to have a central move and it has to be yours. You have to own your comedy, own what you do.

Some of the best dramatic actors have started in comedy.

Police blog or entertainment news, it's just good to see your name in print.

Father's Day just be Mother's Day the sequel.

I don't consider myself a stand-up comedian. I consider myself a performer; a comic as opposed to stand-up comedian. Stand-up comedians stand there and do their bits; I break every rule in creation. If there's a rule that can be broken in stand-up, I'll do it.

Man, you can come see me six or seven times in a row and you'll never see the same show twice, because I don't like to be robotic onstage. I like to perform for that particular audience.

I'm afraid one thing - I don't like heights. Heights bug me out. I'm not cool with heights. I refuse to do a comedy show 12 stories up. I'm fearless about everything else.

You turn hotdogs with tongs. Don't you ever use those tongs on a hamburger.

I am the comedy version of ambidextrous. I'm working with my left and right hand. I'm the two-sided coin. I'm all of those metaphors you can think of. I'm the interracial couple. I'm BET and CBS.

I'm big on facial expressions, and I'm big on mannerisms, which I find to be hilarious.

I think what I do in my acting world and what I do in my standup world is bring up a brand that I want to bring across. Once you figure out your brand and what you do, it's kind of easy at that. You end up getting your audience.

I don't like to dabble in anything I don't do well. I don't talk politics.

I thought 'Pineapple Express' was hilarious.

I'll drive down the street, and I'll practice improv. I will sit there at a red light and see two guys talking to each other, and I will just start playing both characters. I can't hear them, but I can see their mouths moving, so I'll just put words in their mouths.

When you're on stage performing stand-up, things only happen one time. I've done bits where I improv a joke, and people are dying. The next show, I try to repeat it, I can't do it. Because with the first audience that was our moment. It can't happen the same way again. We were all there: a certain type of people were at that show and we all got it.

You know how you put peanut butter on a piece of bread and the bread falls - it never falls on the bread side down, it always falls peanut butter side down. That's because of gravity.

You buy a new iPhone, a few months later, another new iPhone comes out, and you get online to buy another one. You can't get enough. You are addicted to Apple.

I've done everything. Selling door-to-door fire extinguishers ... In bars, I used to repair those machines that have 10 different buttons on them to spray club soda and seltzer.

When you're babysitting a kid, all you're seeing is a version of them, a small dosage.

My wife is a vegetarian. When my wife is with me, I eat vegetarian. When she's not, I eat meat. I'm just being honest.

I talked about everything, man. I've always written material that everyone can laugh at. I talked about growing up. I did a lot of physical comedy. That was my thing. I was a physical comedian. I did anything and everything from running on a treadmill, I can paint a picture on stage of anything.

When I first started doing comedy years ago, I used to be the biggest Michael Richards fan. I used to love this dude. He was on a TV show called 'Fridays,' and man, he was tall and lanky - and I was tall and lanky. I love physical comedy, and he was a physical comedian, and I said, 'Man, I love this guy.'

I am addicted to hockey now. I've seen it on TV, but to be there? I had no idea that white people were having so much fun without me.

Just broke up with somebody. Well, it wasn't really a break up, it was a booty call I might have took too serious.

It's not even race; it's a certain type of person that gets 'Pootie Tang.'

I was the hallway clown in high school.

I quit my day job the day my daughter was born. I remember flying to Cleveland and hitting a thunderstorm, which caused the plane to lose pressure, and the oxygen masks fell from the ceiling. We felt the plane dropping; the pilot was taking it down to regain cabin pressure. My heart was in my stomach. I found out after landing that her mom was in labor. I did the show and came back to New York. By the time I walked into the hospital, my daughter was being born. She was waiting for me. She's a sweet daddy's girl. She's premed. She has her own pie company. She works for Habitat for Humanity.

A lot of comedians are selfish.

I have big hands. I can't do the touch-screen thing. I'm a button guy. I want to press buttons.

That's what I am; I'm a drip. You still get hydrated, you still get your nutrients, just a little at a damn time.

In my stand-up, I've always been loose. If there's a curtain onstage, I'll use that in my act. If there's a door, I'll use the door. I always like to use everything at my disposal, which makes each show a little different and a little more fun.