Chris Rock Quotes

I love those people who do story-telling and who ramble on, but I don't do that, I tell jokes - the sort of jokes that anyone really could tell in the pub.

The show business has all phases and grades of dignity, from the exhibition of a monkey to the exposition of that highest art in music or the drama which secures for the gifted artists a world-wide fame princes well might envy.

Yes, I have a good sense of humor to sort of last a long time in show business, and I think to be able to find comedic value in who you are and the people that you work is always a good thing.

I will never stop doing stand-up; that's my career, but I will do movies in Hollywood.

My stand-up has a lot of performance in it, and I loved doing it so much that, after years, I put the idea of having a show on the back burner.

I think that being a producer is business and being an actor is art.

Here's what I tell people now when they come to my shows: 'First of all, thank you for stimulating the economy, or at least my economic package.'

Stand-up is the foundation to my career. It's what I started out doing.

I love doing comedy. I did comedy for seven years on 'The King of Queens.'

Podcasts feature comedians being as funny as they can be in a non-censored situation. It's really akin to standup in a way. When you go see a comedian in standup, that is the most pure, unadulterated form of their art.

Stand-up don't get no respect - it's the hardest thing to do in show business. You don't have no band and there's no music.

Show business is my life. When I was a kid I sold insurance, but nobody laughed.

I'd love to do situation comedy - it's the best job in show business.

I'm not going to say the market is flooded, but there are a lot of people doing comedy.

You're on stage and because stand-up comedy is one of the few meritocracies in the entertainment industry, there's some kind of - at least for me, there's some kind of idea of control.

I like doing stand-up and I love putting out TV specials. I'm not an actor though, so I don't really have much choice in the matter.

I was a born club comic. Radio and TV and stage were fine, but I found my real home in cabaret.

Anybody can go onstage and be dirty. You have to be funny, that's the key. You can say anything as long as it's funny. You can't take it too seriously up there. And people coming to see you can't take it too seriously.

Your only guidepost is your own instinct and judicious editing. In my stand-up act I learned that in the first 10 minutes I could say anything and it would get a laugh. Then I'd better deliver. In the movie it's the same thing. You get a lot of laughs when people first sit down and then the story better kick in. Many years in front of an audience, I would hope, give me a sense of what works.

I find comedy to be one of the highest of the art forms.

I think comedy is difficult, and I'm amazed so many people want to do it. I'll be buying jeans and somebody will say, "I'm a comedian" - the guy selling you the jeans. The desire to be a comedian is weird. I found it weird myself to want to be one; I was a schoolboy when I wanted to be one but I didn't know how to do it. That was 50 years ago, so times have changed greatly. There seems to be a long line of people desperate to do it and most of them are quite good.

For the most part, comedy is the only fair part of show business.

Later, when I was at Caesar's Palace, and [Joe and Gil Cates] were trying to get me to have opening acts for the show, they gave me a list of people, and Rosie O'Donnell was one of them. I said, "I don't really need any opening acts. I have funny stuff in the show, and I do a lot of comedy and stuff."

I had always been heavily influenced by stand-up.

I thought she was the funniest woman, and I believed being a comedian was the most exciting thing you could be.