Quote

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

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Paul Mooney
Age: 79 †
Born: 1941
Born: August 4
Died: 2021
Died: May 19
Comedian
Film Actor
Screenwriter
Television Actor
Television Producer
Shreveport
Louisiana
Paul Gladney
Black
Richard
Self
Keeping
Real
Constant
Never
Battle
World
Seen
Anyone
Success
White
Messed

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You know who you are. If my mother is a nun and someone comes up to me and they go, 'Your mother is a prostitute.' It is not going to bother me, because I know my mother is a nun, she's not a prostitute.
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Majority doesn't rule. One person can change the history of the world.
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If your hair is relaxed, white people are relaxed. If your hair is nappy, they're not happy.
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White people made up the n-word, they knew about racial jokes before anybody, and in their old movies and old cartoons they made fun of everybody, especially black folks. Racial jokes were not new to them.
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America is racial. America was founded on race. Race is America. The code name for America is 'race.'
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People in America worship money, and a white man's face on a green piece of paper does not make me wealthy. My health makes me wealthy. I used to work at a hospital, so I know the real deal.
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People do many things for many reasons. Sometimes, what you do you have no control over, because it's predestined. It's gonna happen in spite of you. There's nothing you can do about it.
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White people are very good at acting like they're not racist. They deserve an Academy Award for that.
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Hillary Clinton could say she was a woman and running for president. And Sarah Palin could say she was a woman and running for vice-president. But Obama couldn't say, 'I'm black and I'm running for president.' It couldn't come out of his mouth. He couldn't say that because, if he did, he'd lose votes.
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You can't pick when you're touched. You can't pick the time. It just is. It's the reality. What it is, is. I can't change the past. I can only deal with the present and the future.
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My comedy is a nuclear bomb inside my mind. It's a weapon that's never been tested. It just blows up and flattens everybody.
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People don't want to hear the truth, they never do. They wanna live in some kind of fantasy. And then when they get caught up in it, they start being in denial because they don't want to be wrong.
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I don't want affirmative action - too much affirmative, not enough action.
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I like when people are trapped in the joke, when there's no escape. I like to lead people down the wrong path and then trap them.
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People ask me, when was my best time? I always say, 'Today.'
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There's no such thing as reverse racism.
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You white folks see UFOs in your dreams. You don't hear about Martians in Harlem.
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A woman can tell me about her having a baby, but I'll never know what it is to have a baby.
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Whatever that thing is that white people like in blacks, I don't have it. Maybe it's my arrogance or my self-assurance or the way I carry myself, but whatever it is, I don't have it.
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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.
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