Top 15 Dave Chappelle Quotes

There's more shootings than I can literally count. You can't even go to the goddamn zoo without seeing a shooting nowadays. They shot a gorilla at my local zoo. And the Cincinnati police said, "Shooting that gorilla was the toughest decision this department ever had to make." I said, "Well, you're about to see a lot of niggas in gorilla costumes in Cincinnati."

You can't get un-famous. You can get infamous, but you can't get un-famous.

The mark of greatness is when everything before you is obsolete, and everything after you bears your mark.

The worst thing to call somebody is "crazy". It's dismissive. "I don't understand this person, so they're crazy." That's bullshit. 'Cuz people are not crazy. They're strong people. Maybe the environment is a little sick.

Never in a million years will you hear somebody on the radio say "I'm up for runnin' up on them crackers in city hall."

That's a cold game. That's the motherfucking capitalist manifesto, and that's why I went to South Africa. So now we got us a little secret, bitch.

You ladies were right. To be honest with you, your lives look terrifying to me. They do. Man, I know nothing about being a woman, but I know fear. Yo, I used to live in New York when I was 17, and I couldn't even pay my bills. You know what I did to make money? I used to do shows for drug dealers that wanted to clean their money up. One time I did a real good set, and these motherfuckers called me in the back room. They gave me $25,000 in cash. I was probably 18, 19 years old. I was scared. I thanked them profusely, I put that money in my backpack, I jumped on the subway and started heading towards Brooklyn at one o'clock in the morning. Never been that terrified in my life, because I'd never in my life had something that somebody else would want. I thought to myself, "Jesus Christ, if these motherfuckers knew how much money I had in this backpack, they'd kill me for it." Then I thought, "Holy shit. What if I had a pussy on me all the time?" That's what women are dealing with. I'm gonna tell you right now, this is real talk. If them same drug dealers gave me a pussy and said, "Put this in your backpack and take it to Brooklyn," I'd be like, "Nigga, I can't accept this."

You know who's the most uncomfortable motherfucker in the room? The nigga that's right. I was right at an orgy once. Nobody fucked me. I was just walking around like Tom Cruise at the movies, just looking, and ruined the whole orgy by accident. It's easier to ruin an orgy than you think. All you gotta do is wait for it to get kind of quiet and then go "Eww."

With reconstruction, black people did great. My great-grandfather was a very wealthy man. But then the black codes came, Jim Crow came, and it was a hundred years of unspeakable oppression again. Lynchings, all kinds of terroristic acts to keep us in the margins of society. And yet, we still fought. And Dr. King was born. And then, things got better. Twenty years after Dr. King was assassinated, Michael Jackson was moonwalking on television. Something something something, Barack Obama.

Phew. Well, it's the last show. Here we are. Los Angeles. The world capital of... rape and dick breath. The fuck has been going on out here? Keeps getting worse. Just when you think it can't get worse, they got Charlie Rose today. It's going to be a quiet morning on the news tomorrow. Charlie Rose? Who's next, Captain Kangaroo? Everybody is raping like hotcakes. I, for one, am starting to get worried. You know, I've been in show business 30 years. I had no idea how much danger I was in. It's really some scary shit.

This motherfucker grabbed the podium, he goes, "You don't know how scary the things I read in my briefings are." And I was like, "Holy shit, man. You ain't supposed to tell us that, bro." That's bad leadership. Even as a parent, you think I'm gonna sit my kids down like, "Hey, little man, come here real quick, I just wanna holler at you for just a second. Yo, um... I'm three months behind on the rent, nigga, and I. am. worried. Very worried. But go on, go to school and have a productive day, nigga. I was just thinking out loud, getting some shit off of my chest."

My oldest son ... let me tell you, this kid is only sixteen years old, listen to what he did to me. This motherfucker calls me up in the middle of the night, it was one o'clock in the morning. He goes, "Dad, don't be mad." I knew something was terribly wrong. I said, "What's going on?" He said, "Listen, I'm fine. And don't forget, you told me to do this. I'm at a party, and my designated driver had too much to drink. Me and my friends need you to come pick us up." I said, "Jesus Christ, it's one o'clock in the morning, nigga. I am shitfaced." But then I figured, fuck, it's better me than some kid. I might as well roll the dice and go pick my nigga up. I said, "Alright, I'm coming to get you. Just give me the address and I'll be right there." And then he gave me the address, and I was - I was shocked. I said, "Son, you are not gonna believe this, but I'm at the same party, nigga."

You know how I know I'm getting old? This is embarassing, but... I was in my hotel room. I was... I'm not gonna lie, I was jerking off. And I was, like, really sweating it out. And this is when I knew I was old: I just gave up in the middle, like nothing even happened. Like, I don't like looking at my dick anymore. My dick looks distinguished. It's old, an old-looking dick. It's got salt-and-pepper hair all around it. My dick looks like Morgan Freeman in the 90s. Without the dots. My dick narrates, "Dave pulled me out and started jerking me around, jerking me around. But not with the same vigor as when he was young. He and I both knew nothing was coming out."

I was in Portland, Oregon, and I was checked in a hotel under the name Charles Edward Cheese. I came back to my room late at night, and there was a note; it was like a letter on my desk. It was addressed to "Mr. Cheese." So, obviously, I'm gonna assume that whoever wrote this letter must be an intimate friend of mine; this is not some kind of name that a person would just guess. But then I open the letter, and it turns out I don't know this person at all. It's a fan letter. You know, I'm not even used to the idea that I have fans, but I'm grateful for it. And uh, and even though I'm grateful for fans, I... I don't read those letters. Be nice if I did, but realistically, it's like, "What am I, Santa Claus, nigga? I don't have time for this. I got shit I wanna do. I'm trying to chill."

My parents did just well enough so that I could grow up poor around white people. To be honest, when Nas and them talk about the projects, nigga, I used to get jealous. Because it sounded fun. Everybody in the projects was poor, and that's fair. But if you were poor in Silver Spring, nigga, it felt like it was only happening to you. Nas does not know the pain of that first sleepover at a white friend's house. You'd come back home on Sunday and just look at your parents like, "Y'all need to step your game up. Everything in Timmy's house works."