Richard Pryor famous quotes

I can't just say the words, do a lot of one-liners. I love each person I play; I have to be that person. I have to do him true.
-- Richard Pryor

#True Love #Play #One Liner

A lie is profanity. A lie is the worst thing in the world. Art is the ability to tell the truth.
-- Richard Pryor

#Art #Lying #World

I believe the ability to think is blessed. If you can think about a situation, you can deal with it. The big struggle is to keep your head clear enough to think.
-- Richard Pryor

#Thanksgiving #Believe #Struggle

I never met anybody who said when they were a kid, I wanna grow up and be a critic.
-- Richard Pryor

#Funny #Growing Up #Kids

Marriage is really tough because you have to deal with feelings... and lawyers.
-- Richard Pryor

#Marriage #Funny Love #Love You

The reason people use a crucifix against vampires is because vampires are allergic to bullshit.
-- Richard Pryor

#Atheist #Bullshit #People

You work your butt off and somebody says you can't have your record played because it offends them. Tyrants are made of such stuff.
-- Richard Pryor

#Tyrants #Records #Stuff

When you ain't got no money, you gotta get an attitude.
-- Richard Pryor

#Attitude #No Money

There's a lot more hypocrisy than before. Racism has gone back underground.
-- Richard Pryor

#Racism #Hypocrisy #Gone

I think about being married again, having a home and a wife. No one can ever be married too many times, and maybe if I keep trying I'll get it right one day.
-- Richard Pryor

#Home #Thinking #Wife

I believe in divine forces and energies.
-- Richard Pryor

#Believe #Energy #Divine

I became a performer because it was what I enjoyed doing.
-- Richard Pryor

#Performers

It's been a struggle for me because I had a chance to be white and refused.
-- Richard Pryor

#Struggle #White #Chance

I was kicked out of school because of my attitude. I was not assimilating. So I went to work, taking any jobs I could get.
-- Richard Pryor

#Jobs #Attitude #School

I went to Zimbabwe. I know how white people feel in America now; relaxed! Cause when I heard the police car I knew they weren't coming after me!
-- Richard Pryor

#Funny #White #Zimbabwe

What I am for is justice for everyone, just like it says in the Constitution.
-- Richard Pryor

#Justice #Constitution #Owners

There was a time in my life when I thought I had everything - millions of dollars, mansions, cars, nice clothes, beautiful women, and every other materialistic thing you can imagine. Now I struggle for peace.
-- Richard Pryor

#Beautiful #Nice #Struggle

If I thought about it, I could be bitter, but I don't feel like being bitter. Being bitter makes you immobile, and there's too much that I still want to do.
-- Richard Pryor

#Want #Too Much #Bitterness

Everyone carries around his own monsters.
-- Richard Pryor

#Monsters

Who you gonna believe-me or your lying eyes?
-- Richard Pryor

#Lying #Believe #Eye

There's a thin line between to laugh with and to laugh at.
-- Richard Pryor

#Laughter #Laughing #Lines

I'm for human lib, the liberation of all people, not just black people or female people or gay people.
-- Richard Pryor

#Gay #People #Black

Have you ever noticed how quiet you get when you go in the woods? It's almost like you know that God's there.
-- Richard Pryor

#Woods #Quiet #Like You

If you want a friend, you don't buy a friend, Eric, you earn a friend through love and trust and respect.
-- Richard Pryor

#Money #Want #Eric

There are only two pieces of ***** you're gonna get in your entire life, that's your first and your last.
-- Richard Pryor

#Two # #Lasts

Rosa Parks showed us all that one little person can make a whole bunch of noise without so much as a whisper. She showed the world that the color of your skin shouldn't determine what part of the bus you sit in... as you ride through life.
-- Richard Pryor

#Color #Skins #World

I don't want to go through life as a Wonder Wheel murderer!
-- Richard Pryor

#Want #Wheels #Wonder

When that fire hit your ass, it will sober your ***** up quick! I saw something, I went, Well, that's a pretty blue. You know what? That looks like... FIRE! Fire is inspirational. They should use it in the Olympics, because I ran the 100 in 4.3.
-- Richard Pryor

#Blue #Fire #Looks

When I was in Africa, this voice came to me and said, Richard, what do you see? I said, I see all types of people. The voice said, But do you see any niggers? I said, No. It said, Do you know why? 'Cause there aren't any.
-- Richard Pryor

#Voice #People #Causes

I think about dying. I've come to realize we all die alone in one way or another.
-- Richard Pryor

#Thinking #Dying #Way

I'm not addicted to cocaine. I just like the way it smells.
-- Richard Pryor

#Smell #Way #Cocaine

I see people as the nucleus of a great idea that hasn't come to be yet.
-- Richard Pryor

#Ideas #People #Nucleus

I expected Dracula to come jumping out any second. If he did I'd have held up a cross, cause he's allergic to bullshit.
-- Richard Pryor

#Jumping #Bullshit #Causes

Now they're calling taking drugs an epidemic - that's cos white folks are doing it.
-- Richard Pryor

#White #Epidemics #Drug

There's nothing worse than being an aging young person.
-- Richard Pryor

#Aging #Comedy #Young

I'd like to make you laugh for about ten minutes though I'm gonna be on for an hour.
-- Richard Pryor

#Funny #Laughing #Comedy

I had some great things and I had some bad things. The best and the worst . . . In other words, I had a life.
-- Richard Pryor

#Worst #Great Things

I won't talk about what it was like in prison, except to say I'm glad I'm out and that I plan never to go back and to pay my taxes every day.
-- Richard Pryor

#Pay #Prison #Taxes

I had to stop drinkin, cuz I got tired of waking up in my car driving ninety.
-- Richard Pryor

#Funny #Drinking #Tired

I believe in the institution of marriage, and I intend to keep trying till I get it right.
-- Richard Pryor

#Marriage #Believe #Trying

I ain't no movie star, man. I'm a booty star.
-- Richard Pryor

#Funny #Stars #Men

Hawaii is the best form of comfort for me. When I die, I want to be cremated, and I want half my ashes spread in the Pacific around the island, the rest on the property.
-- Richard Pryor

#Islands #Comfort #Ashes

I don't see myself getting married again, but if I do, it will be forever.
-- Richard Pryor

#Forever #Married #Getting Married

Sure, I have friends, plenty of friends, and they all come around wantin' to borrow money. I've always been generous with my friends and family, with money, but selfish with the important stuff like love.
-- Richard Pryor

#Selfish #Important #Family And Friends

Booty is just a ghetto expression, and I'm just a booty star.
-- Richard Pryor

#Stars #Ghetto #Expression

I urge you to ask yourself just how honorable it is to preside over the abuse and suffering of animals.
-- Richard Pryor

#Animal #Abuse #Suffering

Yes, I'm religious. God has shown me things, made certain ways clear to me.
-- Richard Pryor

#Religious #Way #Made

I realized this is what God has dealt me, and I should be thankful considering all that's happened to me in my life, but MS caused the movies to stop - stop dead - and I miss it.
-- Richard Pryor

#Being Thankful #Missing #Thankfulness

The way I see it, the earth is going to be here after we're dead and gone. Even if it's a polluted planet, and they messed it up. Where do they go from here - to another planet so they can mess that up too?
-- Richard Pryor

#Gone #Earth #Way

Even when I was a little kid, I always said I would be in the movies one day, and damned if I didn't make it.
-- Richard Pryor

#Kids #One Day #Would Be

I just don't want to die alone, that's all. That's not too much to ask for, is it It would be nice to have someone care about me, for who I am, not about my wallet.
-- Richard Pryor

#Nice #Who I Am #Would Be

Crosses only scare vampires away because they're allergic to bullshit.
-- Richard Pryor

#Bullshit #Scare #Vampire

Someone called all the newspapers in New York and told them I'd died. I've been told by almost everyone it was an ex-wife - I've had a few so it's hard to pinpoint which one - but who knows for sure?
-- Richard Pryor

#New York #Wife #Newspapers

Movies are movies, and I don't think any of them are going to hurt the moral fiber of America and all that nonsense.
-- Richard Pryor

#Hurt #Thinking #America

A sold-out house my first night back. Do you have any idea what kinda pressure that is? I could have been at home in my warm bed, playing Nintendo.
-- Richard Pryor

#Home #Night #Ideas

Imagine people calling you to find out if you're dead. I've led a real crazy life at times, and I've had many strange things happen to me, but that was one of the strangest.
-- Richard Pryor

#Crazy #Real #People

I'm not for integration and I'm not against it.
-- Richard Pryor

#Integration

I was a loner and never hung out with anyone. I never had any friends.
-- Richard Pryor

#Loner #Hung

I know that if I wasn't scared, something's wrong, because the thrill is what's scary.
-- Richard Pryor

#Scary #Thrill #Scar

But for the use of physical punishment by, and fear of their oppressors, animals would never be a part of a circus.
-- Richard Pryor

#Animal #Punishment #Circus

You gotta be cool when you're macho man, cuz you can't be sensitive and care about someone having a good time in bed, cuz that's too scary... When you don't use sensitivity when you're having sex, or share some of your soul, nothing gonna happen, because men really get afraid. Men really get scared in bed.
-- Richard Pryor

#Sex #Men #Scary

I went through every phone book in Africa, and I didn't find one god damned Pryor!
-- Richard Pryor

#Book #Phones

Two things people throughout history have had in common are hatred and humour. I am proud that I have been able to use humour to lessen people's hatred.
-- Richard Pryor

#Two #People #Hatred

The black groups that boycott certain films would do better to get the money together to make the films they want to see, or stay in church and leave us to our work.
-- Richard Pryor

#Black #Church #Together

Friends take up time, and I didn't have time.
-- Richard Pryor

Do you know how you felt when you would lean all the way back in a chair, and just before you were about to tip over, at the very last second, you'd catch yourself ? That's how I feel all the time.
-- Richard Pryor

#Way #Lasts #Chairs

What I'm saying might be profane, but it's also profound.
-- Richard Pryor

#Profound #Might #Profanity

All humor is rooted in pain.
-- Richard Pryor

#Pain #Humour