It is as big a mistake to turn down a good shot as it is to take a bad one
I'm relaxed about my career. I've been making movies for over 20 years, so I've earned at least the right to relax.
I started out as a stand-up comedian. And that's what I'm most comfortable doing.
My wife ain't gonna make love to me if I got no money!
I started out as an impressionist and that’s all about observing, how people move, their voice quality, their attitudes and quirks.
When I'm doing stand-up, it's just me depending on me. I know how to go out there and make people laugh. I've been doing it since I was a teenager. I trust my instincts. I just go out and talk. A lot of the time I let the material come from the top of my head.
Are you driving with your eyes open? Or are you, like, using "the force"?
How can you do the moonwalk and ask a woman to dance? Hey baby lets dance... cya later!
Is it just me, or does every woman in New York have a severe emotional problem?
I keep telling people I'll make movies until I'm fifty and then I'll go and do something else. I'm going to be a professional gentleman of leisure.
I have enough of a sense to know what works for me and what doesn't, without going into some big thing and analyzing what I do. I'm in a position that allows me to do what I want to do, and I do it.
That's my idol, Elvis Presley. If you went to my house, you'd see pictures all over of Elvis. He's just the greatest entertainer that ever lived.
Mick Jagger's lips' so big, black people be going, "You got some big-ass lips!"
White boys always get the Oscar. It's a known fact. Did I ever get a nomination? No! You know why? Cause I hadn't played any of them slave roles, and get my ass whipped. That's how you get the nomination. A black dude who plays a slave that gets his ass whipped gets the nomination, a white guy who plays an idiot gets the Oscar. That's what I need, I need to play a retarded slave, then I'll get the Oscar.
Growing up, I liked all the stuff that everyone else was listening to, like Motown, but the biggest group of all was The Beatles.
There's always been a lot of negative stuff written about me. That's why I don't pay any attention to the critics. They've never liked anything I've done. What do critics know? It's the way the audience reacts that matters.
Whenever I am on camera or doing anything on mic, I don't have any process at all. I just do it and, when I'm finished, it goes away. There is no process. I wish there were some techniques to it. I just turn it on and off, and then I go home.
I'm just a man. I think people are reacting to something else when they see me. They're not reacting to me, Eddie Murphy. They don't even know me. It's just luck and the God in me they're reacting to.
That's my idol, Elvis Presley. If you went to my house, you'd see pictures all over of Elvis. He's just the greatest entertainer that ever lived. And I think it's because he had such presence. When Elvis walked into a room, Elvis Presley was in the f***ing room. I don't give a f*** who was in the room with him, Bogart, Marilyn Monroe.
I only want to do what I really want to do; otherwise, I'm content to sit here and play my guitar all day.
I've made 30 movies and for the most part my movies work. In a business where success is an exception and not the rule, I've mostly been successful.
I'm the artist when I'm doing music that I am when I'm acting. I'm everything.
From the very beginning, I always tried to make dialogue flow comfortably; I always did that to make it seem more authentic.
The competitions are as much a part of the tradition as the actual dances.
Over the past 50 years Bob Hope employed 88 joke writers who supplied him with more than one million gags, and he still couldn't make me laugh.
