Nipsey Russell Quotes

Humor is based on the way a man looks at life’s ironies, and being a member of a minority group can certainly be ironic.

Six good guest shots on top shows during one season are more than enough and any producer who wants to make me happy could offer some floating guest dates for discussion and panel shows. It’s generally agreed that I love to talk, so shows of this kind are right down my alley.

I don’t drink.

Real progress will have been made when people don’t care or even notice the color of a comedian when they’ll just be concerned with whether he’s funny.

Word games are very easy for me.

I used to say, ‘We’ve always had integration in the South… we just want it now in the daytime.

America is the only place in the world where you can work in an Arab home in a Scandinavian neighborhood and find a Puerto Rican baby eating matzo balls with chopsticks.

Divorces are getting so common that a woman I know doesn’t bother getting a new marriage license. They just punch her old one and give her a transfer. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks – so she keeps changing dogs.

There aren’t any messages in my social protestations.

I start with the joke line and write backward.

I haven’t got a Cadillac. I’ve got a subway token.

During all the years I entertained at the Baby Grand night club in Harlem, 90 percent of the audience was white. But when I tried to break Into television, I was told that white folks wouldn’t understand what I was talking about.

For artistic fulfillment I prefer to work live. For career advancement, I go to the media.

Truck drivers stop me and say, ‘What is the poem for the day?’ or ‘Give me a poem for my girl.’ I have one on almost every subject.

There’s no money in television, but TV provides the wherewithal to get the dollars for live performances.

Jack Paar was my first TV patron saint.

I use mother-in-law jokes, kid jokes, tax jokes – anything that works.

I’ve always had the ability to manipulate words and communicate ideas and thoughts.

I don’t want to get in a one-character rut.

Some college athletes don’t want to turn pro, they don’t want to take the cut in pay.

I’ve dropped a lot of race humor from my routines, not because I think it is in bad taste, but because I don’t want to be guilty of telling old jokes.

I talk too much.

As far as television is concerned, I’m just not interested in working on a series. Why should I settle for being someone’s second banana? And that weekly grind is unrewarding and too demanding.

If the social evolution leads to jokes, I use them.

My mother just liked the way the name Nipsey sounded.

I feel the life expectancy of a comedian is 30 seconds. If you don’t hook an audience in half-a-minute, you’re dead.

He who turns the other cheek will get hit with the other fist.

New York can be any city it wants to be.

My exercise is pall-bearin’ for athletes and food faddists.

You see, the patience of an audience is very short, particularly with a non-entity. You’re an intruder, and you must make them laugh within three or four seconds. My poems fit the requirements, and I’m always thinking up new ones.

If you see me on the street, don’t just say, ‘There goes Nipsey.’ Walk over and say, ‘Hello Nipsey,’ and give me a warm slap on the back and hand me a few dollars.

I began working on stage in Atlanta when I was 3, doing a dance act with the Ragamuffins of Rhythm. Later I became a juvenile straight man for the older comedians. After that I worked out a stand-up act.

My only mission is to look for fun, the lighter side of life. I spell it fool-osophy.

I knew racial discrimination at its worst in the 1930s. I lived with the humility of it but I never lost my sense of humor. Humor is the escape valve from the deadly reality of adversity.

Many times good actors I have known in New York accept series. I tune in at the beginning of the new season and think ‘He’s really working.’ But six months later, if I tune in again, the actor is on a treadmill, grinding it out as best he can, and he can’t help it.