I hate to let people down. I was like that in sports and I was like that in comedy. I was like that at work. When I worked General Motors and stuff like that, when I say something, I mean it. – Bernie Mac
My name is Bernard Jeffrey McCullough, but people know me as Bernie Mac. My mama, God rest her soul – she used to call me Beanie. Used to say, ‘Don’t you worry about Beanie. Beanie gonna be just fine. Beanie gonna surprise everyone.’ – Bernie Mac
People like rumors. They’re going to say things like, ‘You was at the club with Lil’ Kim, and you and Kanye West got into a fist fight.’ You can’t get upset. You’ve got to keep hope alive. – Bernie Mac
Why I was so intrigued with Red Skelton was because he was able to make you cry and laugh and the same time. That was power. – Bernie Mac
When I get a chance to play golf or go on a boat with good people, take the boat out and put some lobsters on the grill, get the ice-cold beer and the cigars – that’s heaven here on earth. – Bernie Mac
I came up in the community center. I used to be physical director of the South Central Community Center in Chicago on 83rd. It’s still there. It used to be around there when I was a kid. – Bernie Mac
Every time you see a black romance, it’s over-the-top. There always has to be extreme hostility between the sexes. He has to cheat. She has to show him how independently strong she is, not just as a woman but as a black woman. – Bernie Mac
As I got older, I got into all kinds of things in the streets – but for some reason, I never got caught up with the gangs growing up. Everybody dug me, man. I never had problems. – Bernie Mac
I want to speak directly to the audience, to say, ‘I’m like you – I’m frustrated, I’m not an expert, I don’t have a manual on parenting, I make mistakes, I’m selfish too.’ – Bernie Mac
Like a lot of black people, I grew up straight po’. Wasn’t no question about whether we was po’, either. If you really wanted to know, all you had to do was look in our refrigerator. – Bernie Mac
I have Glocks, .45s, Berettas, Remingtons. I like the marksmanship and the discipline that it takes to be a gun owner. I like the machinery. Being able to take it out and clean it is even more fascinating than having the gun. – Bernie Mac
I was in love with a lot of people, because I was a student of the game of comedy – Carol Burnett, Jack Benny, Red Skelton, Jackie Gleason, Don Rickles, Red Foxx, Moms Mabley – who gets no credit, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, George Kirby. I loved them all, and I used to just take a page out of all of them. – Bernie Mac
You know, every time it comes, every time that light comes on or every time that camera comes on, every time that microphone comes on, the Mac Man seek and destroy. – Bernie Mac
I don’t care about how I look; I’m dedicated to the laughs. You know, I used to be a clown, so – my name was Smoothie the Clown. All the training I had, all my training is geared toward making people laugh, and I didn’t care about being cool. – Bernie Mac
I can act. I’ve been acting for a long time, but like anything else, don’t nobody owe you nothing. You’ve go to pay your dues. You go from A to Z; you don’t go from M to Z. – Bernie Mac
The one thing about comedy, making it become a part of you, the audience loves it, because you become part of them. – Bernie Mac
I want people to say at the end of my day, you know, like I used to say about Sidney Poitier and James Cagney and Joan Crawford and Red Skelton and those guys and Bill Cosby. They did quality and substance. You always remember them. – Bernie Mac
I don’t have no story. Everybody wants this Hollywood story, but the world don’t owe you nothing, man. It’s what you owe the world. – Bernie Mac
I learned hard lessons in life; I had to because I had so much happen: My mother died my sophomore year in high school. The next year, same day, my brother dropped dead. Two years after that, I got married because my girlfriend got pregnant. The year after my wedding, my father – who I had only recently met – died. – Bernie Mac
I hate to compare anything, especially while I’m promoting. I feel that’s another disrespect, but ‘Ocean’s 13’ is the best movie I’ve ever done in my life. No question. – Bernie Mac
