Nipsey Russell
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.Collection: Marriage
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.Collection: Patience
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.Collection: Humor
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.Collection: Funny
I haven't got a Cadillac. I've got a subway token.
I use mother-in-law jokes, kid jokes, tax jokes - anything that works.
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.
New York can be any city it wants to be.
I don't want to get in a one-character rut.
My exercise is pall-bearin' for athletes and food faddists.
I used to say, 'We've always had integration in the South... we just want it now in the daytime.
I start with the joke line and write backward.
My mother just liked the way the name Nipsey sounded.
The great part of appearing on game shows is that when you answer a question the camera takes a close-up of you every time. You get more close-ups than in a movie, and that's terrific for audience identification. The people have to see you to like you.
If the social evolution leads to jokes, I use them.
My only mission is to look for fun, the lighter side of life. I spell it fool-osophy.
Comedy is based partly on mean-spiritedness.
In all my years in show business - on stage, clubs and TV shows - my audience has been 75 percent white. In Las Vegas and Atlantic City I look out at the crowd and only see a few black faces here and there. But I can't allow myself to be conscious of the race factor. I couldn't perform my best under those conditions.
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.
For artistic fulfillment I prefer to work live. For career advancement, I go to the media.
I talk too much.
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.
He who turns the other cheek will get hit with the other fist.
Some college athletes don't want to turn pro, they don't want to take the cut in pay.
I talk about things that are front page news.
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 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.
One character mistook me for the model and remarked 'That Man-Tan sure works wonders!' That ain't Man-Tan. I'm tan, man. From my head to my toes.
Our country's social revolution lends itself to jokes and I use them.
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.
There aren't any messages in my social protestations.
Game shows are like golf and tennis are for some men. It's not like going to work.
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 was so scared the first time I flew the flight attendant called me Whitey.
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.
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.
I've always had the ability to manipulate words and communicate ideas and thoughts.
Jack Paar was my first TV patron saint.
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.
Word games are very easy for me.
I'm living the life of liberty, happiness and pursuit.
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.
Pro and con are opposites, that fact is clearly seen. If progress means to move forward, then what does congress mean?Collection: Funny
When you a 'has-been', just think of where you HAS-BEEN.Collection: Thinking
I'm all for ERA. I want to see women equal to men - not so damn superior like they've been.Collection: Work