Steve Harvey
Comedians walk out, get a feel for the crowd. If it's not going good, we change directions. If we got to drag your momma into this thing, we will. Whatever we got to do.
My mother raised me in the church. I was not allowed to stay home on Sunday; there was no option. I sang in the choir all the way up until I went to college.
Hollywood is run by people who sit up in their executive office, who are not connected to Mississippi, Alabama, Chicago, South Carolina. They know nothing about that, they don't go to church, and they make their decisions about what they think is right.
Being on a comedy tour is like traveling with family, everyone is all having a great time... then all of a sudden it turns sour. One thing gets said out of turn, and everyone is on everyone's last nerve. After an hour of silence, we all start laughing about it.
I'm not really a relationship expert but... I'm an expert on manhood and what men think.
All I knew growing up was that my father was married to and loved my momma, period. He worked hard, made some money, and put it on the dresser. She spent it on the family, and he went out and earned some more. He taught me the most about love.
The best timed joke or the best timed phrase comes at spontaneous moments and just relies on me as the host to be very quick, and that's what I do.
I don't have 'The Jerry Springer Show'. I just got 'Family Feud', but some of them families, when they lose, man, they have some real conversations with each other back behind that wall, but I've never been involved in any of them.
There's a lot more to me than just funny.
The first time I saw my wife, Marjorie, I was doing stand-up in Memphis, and she was sitting in the front row. Afterward, I walked up and said, 'Ma'am, I'm going to marry you one day.' And 15 years later, I did.
If you want to be successful, you have to jump, there's no way around it. When you jump, I can assure you that your parachute will not open right away. But if you do not jump, your parachute will never open. If you're safe, you'll never soar!Collection: Successful
Your reality is yours. Stop wasting time looking at someone else's reality while doing nothing about yours.Collection: Reality
The most successful people in this world recognize that taking chances to get what they want is much more productive than sitting around being too scared to take a shot.Collection: Successful
Everybody by your side ain't on your sideCollection: Your Side
If you pray about it don't worry about it. If you're going to worry about it don't pray about it.Collection: Patience
A woman can't change a man because she loves him. A man changes himself because he loves her.Collection: Men
You can't tell big dreams to small minded people.Collection: Dream
If you are her man, she will talk to you until there just aren’t any more words left to say, encourage you when you’re at rock bottom and think there just isn’t any way out, hold you in her arms when you’re sick, and laugh with you when you’re up. And if you’re her man and that woman loves you—I mean really loves you?—she will shine you up when you’re dusty, encourage you when you’re down, defend you even when she’s not so sure you were right, and hang on your every word, even when you’re not saying anything worth listening to.Collection: Love You
Sometimes out of your biggest misery, comes your greatest gain.Collection: Gains
Failure means you've now learned another valuable lesson that pushes you one step closer to success.Collection: Mean
Your dream has to be bigger than your fear.Collection: Inspirational
My father told me never to take my foot off a ladder to kick at someone who was kicking at me. When I did that, I would no longer be climbing. While they are kicking, my father told me, I should keep stepping. They can kick only one time. If I continued to climb, they would be left behind. In trying to hurt me, to impede my progress, they would get left behind because they allowed themselves to get sidetracked from their agenda.Collection: Inspirational
Your setback is just a setup for your comeback.Collection: Comeback
THE MORE PEOPLE YOU HELP BECOME SUCCESSFUL, THE MORE SUCCESSFUL YOU BECOME.Collection: Successful
There's no such thing as luck. These are blessings. God endows them upon you. He makes you a blessing to become a blessing.Collection: Blessing
You are never too old to reinvent yourself.Collection: Relationship
The number one cause of failure in this country is the fear of failure.Collection: Country
A man fishes for two reasons: he’s either sport fishing or fishing to eat, which means he’s either going to try to catch the biggest fish he can, take a picture of it, admire it with his buddies and toss it back to sea, or he’s going to take that fish on home, scale it, fillet it, toss it in some cornmeal, fry it up, and put it on his plate. This, I think, is a great analogy for how men seek out women.Collection: Sports
Procrastinatio n will delay your change!!! Today is a very good day to change; don't let YOU stop yourself from growing!Collection: Good Day
Your career is what you're paid for. Your calling is what you're made for.Collection: Careers
Don't hate the player; change the gameCollection: Hate
What you want most out of life is the thing you have to give the most ofCollection: Giving
But remember what drives a man; real men do what they have to do to make sure their people are taken care of, clothed, housed, and reasonably sastisfied, and if they're doing anything less than that, they're not men.Collection: Real
Don't be afraid to lose him, because if a man truly loves you, he's not going anywhereCollection: Love You
I ain't no author, man . . . my writing skills are not of "New York Times" best-seller quality, trust and believe it ain't. My vocabulary ain't.Collection: New York
I'm a old hoodlum, so I will jump on you if I have to.Collection: Ifs
I've had my share of problems along the way. Don't get me wrong, because there is no school for this. You go from a poor person to a rich person. My parents didn't have no money; didn't tell me nothing about investments.Collection: School
Through a lot of conversations with the Minister [Louis Farrakhan] you've got to know when to say something. But if you are forever going to be afraid to say anything, then you become irrelevant - as a force. I mean, so the God-given gift that you got, you're not a relevant player in the game - you're just a dude whose got money, got a big house and some cars.Collection: Mean
I've always been this way. My father taught this to me. Here's the thing, you have to understand; the thing about having money: Money and fame don't change you, all it does is allow you to be more of who you are anyway.Collection: Father
If you're a generous person, when you get money and fame, you're going to be more generous. If you're a sharer, you're going to be more sharing. If you're a coward, you're just going to be a bigger coward. That's all money and fame does.Collection: Coward
A lot of times we expect people who get money and fame to suddenly become this "role model" or this "icon." That ain't how it works. Money and fame - all it does it just allows you to be more of who you really are.Collection: Icons
If you think "sagging," and, how many women you've got, and how big a chain you've got, and how much dope you're slangin', and how much money you've got in your pocket makes you a "man," then you're sadly mistaken. You're going to be a misguided soul your entire life.Collection: Dope
The hip hop community is not at fault here - I'm definitely not blaming them. But, that can't be the only view of manhood for our young men.Collection: Men
Our only teachers and role models for our young men cannot be, you know, videos, and, the hip hop community.Collection: Teacher
You can't ask the women to do anymore. It's time for us as Black men to step up and be what we're supposed to be.Collection: Men
The problem in our community is not the women - I mean, they've done all they can do.Collection: Mean
My father was married to mother 'til the day he died, for over 64 years. He's why I kept trying to get the marriage thing right. All I knew growing up was that my father was married to and loved my momma, period. He worked hard, made some money, and put it on the dresser. She spent it on the family, and he went out and earned some more. He taught me the most about love.Collection: Mother
The [Steve Harvey] foundation started originally about the educational needs of children. But, as I got into it more and more, one of my main objectives became mentoring programs for young African American men because that's our problem in our community - it's the African American men.Collection: Children
You think that God positioned you here so you can just have it all to yourself? God blesses you to become a blessing. That's the deal.Collection: Blessing