Chris Rock Quotes

To me, the American Dream is being able to follow your own personal calling. To be able to do what you want to do is incredible freedom.

I always had a separate life than just my work. I built my own family. I have my own hobbies and interests. I have a ranch with livestock and horses. I didn't always get my self-esteem and identity from acting. I never worked unless I wanted to. I never did anything just to do it, just for the paycheck. I always did things that I liked.

Independence I have long considered as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue; and independence I will ever secure by contracting my wants, though I were to live on a barren heath.

I've always lived cheaply. I live like a student, basically. And I like that because it means that money is not telling me what to do. I can do what I think is important for me to do. It freed me to do what seemed worth doing. So make a real effort to avoid getting sucked into all of the expensive lifestyle habits of typical Americans ... because, if you do that, then the people with the money will dictate what you do with your life. You won't be able to do what's really important to you.

I monetized my life so I never do anything that I don't like or that I'm not participating in 100 percent.

I would not have any one adopt my mode of living on any account.

I work hard, I make my own living and I love it. I like having financial independence.

I've run into certain geniuses of individualism - they are very few and far between - who live their lives completely on their own terms; they are very powerful and have a great amount of happiness. We all should aspire to that.

If you don't have many possessions, then you don't need to work all your life like a slave to sustain them, and therefore you have more time for yourself.

I was just living my life, and that's what I wanted to do.

I never set out to be rich and famous. I wanted to follow my own path.

My mother always told me, 'Don't get married. Make your own life. You don't need a man.'

I do what I like now. I just don't have time for it all.

That's what I'm doing. I'm trying to follow what I want to do as my dream. How do I become independent from everybody else?

I'm not looking for anybody or anything. I'm just living my life.

I just want to get paid to lay down, wake up when I want to wake up, go to sleep when I want to go to sleep, and my money just be there. I just want to make the most doing the least.

I wish to live for myself. I should never want to be trapped.

You don't have to get a job that makes others feel comfortable about what they perceive as your success. You don't have to explain what your plan to do with your life. You don't have to justify your education by demonstrating its financial rewards. You don't have to maintain an impeccable credit score. Anyone who expects you to do any of those things has no sense of history of economics or science or the arts.

Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best.

You aren't ever going to be anything in this world unless you do what you want to do, when you want to do it--don't plan anything, just go out and do it.

Life is brief and to have to spend every day of it doing what somebody else wants you to do is not the way to live it.

I really like my life. I've arranged my life so that I can do what I want.

What is it to you if I don't want others to want for me, if I want to want myself - if I want the impossible.

Focus on yourself -- do what you want, when you want, without having to consider anyone else's agenda.

But my whole life has been a matter of fighting for one simple hour to do what I want to do. There was always something getting in the way of my getting to myself.