Richard Pryor quotes:

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Richard Pryor is my favorite stand-up ever. -- Norm MacDonald
Everyone carries around his own monsters.---Richard Pryor -- Jonathan Maberry
I'm telling a Richard Pryor story through me. -- Mike Epps
I love Richard Pryor. I love him to death. -- Mike Epps
I've always liked Richard Pryor. I've always responded to rhythmic profanity. -- David Rees
Why do people love Richard Pryor so much? 'Cause he had problems. -- Bernie Mac
People walked out on Richard Pryor and he's the funniest man alive. -- Tracy Morgan
[Adoption] could turn you into an exquisite comedian. Ask Richard Pryor's ghost. -- Keegan-Michael Key
When Richard Pryor did comedy, it was like he was having a conversation. -- Tracy Morgan
I wish I was this dark genius artist - like Richard Pryor or something. -- Artie Lange
I like Louis C.K., Chris Rock. Old schools like Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy. -- Adam DeVine
I'd much rather see Richard Pryor or Jackie Mason in a theater than in a club. -- Elayne Boosler
I've shown people Richard Pryor who've never seen him, and most of them don't like him. -- Norm MacDonald
My father was funnier than me. My father was Richard Pryor-funny. I'm just a better businessman. -- Tracy Morgan
I met Richard Pryor for the first time in Calgary, in Canada. A very quiet, modest meeting. -- Gene Wilder
As a kid, I loved Paula Poundstone and Richard Pryor. But my mother was a huge influence on my comedy. -- Tig Notaro
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The king of comedy is dead. Richard Pryor was the king of comedy. The rest of them are the king of copycats. -- Paul Mooney
On the comedy side of what I love as a filmmaker are Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce, and Eddie Murphy; those are my favorites. -- David Dobkin
People like to compare something to something that they know. Even with Chris Rock, they say he's like Richard Pryor or Eddie Murphy. -- Hannibal Buress
Richard Pryor is, in my mind, the most honest comedian. He bared his soul to people. I think that's why everybody loved him so much. -- Joe Rogan
[Televised stand-up] never really makes me laugh. The only one I ever saw that I liked was Richard Pryor, and that was [shot on] film. -- Norm MacDonald
I'm not a natural comedian, as an artist. I studied comedy growing up. I would watch Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence, all day. -- Brandon T. Jackson
'The Simpsons' is like Charlie Parker or Marlon Brando or Richard Pryor: Comedy couldn't go back to the way it was after 'The Simpsons' came out. -- Eric Andre
At the end of the day, I want to be part of the same conversation as Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, Dave Chappelle, Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor. -- Kevin Hart
George Carlin was great right up to the end of his life. But Richard Pryor was probably the best, most gifted stand-up comedian who will ever live. -- Denis Leary
As it stands right now, I lead Richard Pryor in heart attacks, two to one. However, Richard still leads me, one to nothing, in burning yourself up. -- George Carlin
There's a charm, there's a rhythm, there's a soul to Jewish humor. When I first saw Richard Pryor perform, I told him, 'You're doing a Jewish act.' -- Alan King
Young stand-ups, we ought to do comedy in George Carlin's spirit, in Richard Pryor's spirit, in Jackie Gleason's spirit, in Lucille Ball's spirit, because they did it with the spirit. -- Tracy Morgan
As far as stand-ups go, I always loved Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, and Sinbad. Basically, I love black comedians because they're the funniest. I wish I were a black comedian, actually. -- Adam DeVine
I had seen movies before that that had made me laugh, but I had never seen anything even remotely close to as funny as Richard Pryor was, just standing there talking. -- Joe Rogan
I've never seen anyone more messed up over success than Richard Pryor. For him, it's a constant battle between success in the white world and keeping it real for his black self. -- Paul Mooney
Whereas I want everything to be peaceful during a birth, I take the total opposite approach when I'm helping someone come to terms with leaving this place - I play Richard Pryor records. -- Erykah Badu
When I was a bit older I had all of the George Carlin records, all of the Steve Martin records, all of the Cheech and Chong records and all of the Richard Pryor records. -- Marc Maron
Richard Pryor introduced me to the world of the inner city, and the urban world, and did it hysterically. My favorite comedian, even though we work 180 degrees differently, but funny is funny is funny. -- Bob Newhart
When I got on Stern I realized that this was the one job where you could be really honest and open, almost like Richard Pryor or something. You can be honest about your life and get laughs. -- Artie Lange
Richard Pryor had real sincere and vulnerable moments. Now it seems so cheesy if you stop your act and say, "This is why we have to help them kids. We've got to make sure them kids can read." -- Moshe Kasher
The truth is, I've never thought of myself as the Michael Jordan of comedy. And that's a good thing. You know why? Because I'm not. Wasn't that Richard Pryor? Yes, it was. I know what I am: I'm funny! -- Tracy Morgan
I was thinking about comedy and how comedy in many ways opens us up to ideas and really being influenced by Richard Pryor and sort of the way he would use comedy to really speak about larger social issues. -- Terry Gross
When I became a standup comic, my hero, one of them, was Richard Pryor, and you know, I think that comedians, like, comedians talk about hacks, and what a hack is, is someone who does stuff that's not original. -- Artie Lange
I learned from the guys before me - Bill Cosby, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Richard Pryor, just to name a few. These are guys that let it all hang out. What they lived is what they took to the stage. -- Kevin Hart
Now, Richard Pryor was unique. Many misunderstood his humor. He lit up the hallway, but they didn't understand his use of profanity. He didn't use it just to be using it; he used it in the context of his satire. -- Bill Cosby
I remember seeing Richard Pryor's first movie; it was a midnight movie when I was in high school. I must have been about fifteen. It was one of the most cathartic experiences of my life. I'd never laughed that much. -- Marc Maron
Historically, Hollywood comedy has arrived in skinny envelopes. From fence post Buster Keaton to herky-jerky Jerry Lewis to wiry nerve-bundle Woody Allen to hung-loose Richard Pryor to whippy contortionist Jim Carrey, its comics and clowns have tended to be sliced thin and bendable. -- James Wolcott
Gene Wilder made his movie debut in "Bonnie And Clyde," starred in the Mel Brooks films "The Producers," "Young Frankenstein" and "Blazing Saddles," played opposite Richard Pryor in "Silver Streak" and "Stir Crazy" and portrayed the candy-maker in "Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory." -- Terry Gross
Julie Christie, I used to hang out with her. She was friends with Richard Pryor and Warren Beatty and all of them. There was a club in Beverly Hills called the Candy Store, a private club. I used to hang out with them all. -- Paul Mooney
We gave each other a hug, [Richard Pryor] said how much he admired me, I said how much I admired him, and we started working the next morning, and we hit it off really well, and he taught me how to improvise on camera. -- Gene Wilder
So I started to relax and would work on my act eight hours a day, sitting at a desk writing at my grandmother's house, and I would put on Richard Pryor Live on Long Beach and would play it like a loop and think and write. -- George Lopez
So I started to relax and would work on my act eight hours a day, sitting at a desk writing at my grandmother's house, and I would put on Richard Pryor Live on Long Beach and would play it like a loop and think and write -- George Lopez
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I have no desire to be hip to the latest black slang and do the stereotypical black thing. I was a Richard Pryor fan, and I have used profanity in my act. But when it becomes a whole thing that defines blacks, we're limiting ourselves. The enemy is us. -- Franklyn Ajaye
W. Kamau Bell is in the vanguard of a new era of American comedy for an unsettling, troubling, and strangely hopeful time. Firmly in the fearless tradition of Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, & Chris Rock. Comedy as common sense purged of the absurd hypocrisy that is Our America. -- Vernon Reid
I reenact everything. I love to paint a picture for my audience. I'm a lot like Richard Pryor in that aspect. I do a lot of acting on stage, acting out and visualizing stuff. I love to do that. I'm into it so much, it just comes out of me. -- Chris Tucker
I love comedy and I would write things to myself as an exercise in writing. I didn't do well for years, and I quit. I started to break down why I was afraid and started to look at people I admired, like Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Freddie Prinze, George Carlin and all. -- George Lopez
One of my greatest inspirations for stand-up was Jonathan Winters. He was a genius. One thing about him, and also Lenny Bruce, is that they were in the tradition of the one-man show. That's why Richard Pryor was so great, and George Carlin, too. They prowled the stage, they used voices, they were really talents. -- Robert Klein
Show me one guy or woman as funny as Rodney Dangerfield or as good as George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, or Joan Rivers. There are a lot of good comics out there, no doubt, but as far as the quality of the comics goes, I think what you have is a bunch of situational comics. -- Chris Rock
Making music on TV used to be as common as commercials. In the '60s and '70s, prime time was stuffed with variety shows headlined by such major and treasured talents as Carol Burnett, Red Skelton, the Smothers Brothers and Richard Pryor, who had a very brief comedy-variety hour on NBC that was censored literally to death. -- Tom Shales
I was scared to death because for the comics of my generation, HBO specials are like the pinnacle. I'm thinking of all these unbelievable comedians I've seen on HBO: Chris Rock, George Carlin, Damon Wayans, Richard Pryor and Billy Crystal. I started having a panic attack seeing my name in that list of people. It was pretty overwhelming. -- Bill Burr
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
I had a couple of movies that I was passionately involved with that I could never get made. 'Richard Pryor,' I wrote for - gosh - over a year. That was close to getting made for two-and-a-half years after that. We're still pushing it, you know. It is weird. Suddenly you wake up and it's like, 'God, five years have gone by.' -- Bill Condon
I guess [Richard] Pryor was that good. I never saw him in a theater, but I imagine he was that good, because he was such a phenomenal actor. -- Norm MacDonald

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