My goal in life was to host the MTV Awards, because it's the awards show that Prince sang on, and that was the awards show that Eddie Murphy hosted and Arsenio hosted.

So, to say Obama is progress is saying that he’s the first black person that is qualified to be president. That’s not black progress. That’s white progress. There’s been black people qualified to be president for hundreds of years. The question is, you know, my kids are smart, educated, beautiful, polite children. There have been smart, educated, beautiful, polite black children for hundreds of years. The advantage that my children have is that my children are encountering the nicest white people that America has ever produced. Let’s hope America keeps producing nicer white people.

Before I was a comedian, I thought the coolest thing that would happen to me was being a teenager... Boy, was I wrong!

If your work is so smart that only smart people get it, it's not that smart.

If a woman tells you she's twenty and looks sixteen, she's twelve. If she tells you she's twenty-six and looks twenty-six, she's damn near fourty.

The thing that surprised me the most is just how much money women that weren't rich were paying for their hair. When you're in a beauty parlor in Harlem next to abandoned buildings and somebody's paying five grand for a weave, that's a bit much. I think this is, in a weird way, part of the health care debate. It's like, hmm, there's people with $2000 weaves that could have bought health care with that weave money.

My dad worked every day. I didn't get into show business to work every day. So the fact that most days I get to like, spend really good time with my kids - that's what success is to me.