I'm not going out and hitting a 95-mph fastball where I can't see the stitches. I'm not on a professional football team looking to tackle a fullback who is built like solid wood. I'm a thinking person, and I've been blessed with the ability to see some things and talk about them in a way that registers in a humorous and funny way.
Bill CosbyYou know the only people who are always sure about the proper way to raise children? Those who've never had any.
Bill CosbyDentists tell you not to pick your teeth with any sharp metal object. Then you sit in their chair and the first thing they grab is an iron hook.
Bill Cosby"And tired" always followed sick. Worst beating I ever got in my life, my mother said, "I am just sick..." And I said, "And tired." I don't remember anything after that.
Bill CosbyThe first time I came across the birds and the bees in actual flight, I couldn't identify the formation.
Bill CosbyWhen you're a father you censor yourself. You get just as angry with a child but you don't want to say, "What the filth and foul and I'll filth and foul, filth and foul and, yeah, ya filth and foul face, and I'll filth and foul, foul, filth!" You don't want to say that to a child so you censor yourself and you sound like an idiot: "What the... Get your... I'll put a... Get out of my face!"
Bill CosbyAll men should freely use those seven words which have the power to make any marriage run smoothly: You know dear, you may be right
Bill Cosby...it was the arts, those noble expressions of the human spirit that are communicated through literature, dance, song, film, drama, painting and sculpture, among the many other such creative means, that helped articulate the sufferings of [these] people that were heard around the globe.
Bill CosbyWe go out of our way to make people so different,... to punish them because of color, because of sex, because of size, and the game starts.
Bill CosbyParents are people who yell and they yell and they yell and they yell. And you already have the point... and they're still yelling.
Bill CosbyThe secret of success is to be like a duck, Smooth and unruffled on top, But paddling furiously underneath.
Bill CosbyI feel that in-person contact with people is the most important thing in comedy. While I'm up on stage, I can actually put myself into the audience and adjust my pace and tuning to them. I can get into their heads through their ears and through their eyes. Only through this total communication can I really achieve what I'm trying to do.
Bill CosbyWhen I was a child, I was living in the housing projects of Philadelphia. I didn't even have a Christmas tree.
Bill CosbyRaising children is an incredibly hard and risky business in which no cumulative wisdom is gained: each generation repeats the mistakes the previous one made.
Bill CosbyMy dad came over to the house... went into his pocket and pulled out a handful of money, and began to pass it out to the children... This was the same man who, when I was his child, I would ask him for 50 cents, this man would tell me his life's story.
Bill CosbyNothing I've ever done has given me more joys and rewards than being a father to my children.
Bill CosbyYou go and you buy a lottery ticket. You've got just as much chance of getting struck by lightning as you do of winning the lottery.
Bill CosbyLike everyone else who makes the mistake of getting older, I begin each day with coffee and obituaries.
Bill CosbyThere are no absolutes in raising children. In any stressful situation, fathering is always a roll of the dice. The game may be messy, but I have never found one with more joys and rewards.
Bill CosbyI'm not sure if my parents had me because they loved me, or because they wanted someone to watch their other children.
Bill CosbyIf you want to be seen, stand up. If you want to be heard, speak up. If you want to be appreciated, shut up.
Bill CosbyRacial humor was about 35% of my act when I first started. But I realized that it was a crutch. What brought it home was when another comedian said to me, 'If you changed color tomorrow, you wouldn't have any material.' He meant it as a put-down, but I took it as a challenge.
Bill CosbyI am proud to be an American. Because an American can eat anything on the face of this earth as long as he has two pieces of bread.
Bill CosbyIn spite of what Thomas Jefferson wrote, all men may be created equal, but not to all women.
Bill CosbyEvery success story has a parent who says, 'over my dead body.' Every success story has an old person who walks up to you and says, when you're acting the fool, 'you know I worry about you sometimes.'
Bill Cosby