Nipsey Russell Quotes

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Nipsey Russell

Profession : Comedian

Birth : September 15, 1918

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.

Nipsey Russell

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.

Nipsey Russell

I haven't got a Cadillac. I've got a subway token.

Nipsey Russell

If the social evolution leads to jokes, I use them.

Nipsey Russell

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.

Nipsey Russell

For artistic fulfillment I prefer to work live. For career advancement, I go to the media.

Nipsey Russell

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.

Nipsey Russell

I was so scared the first time I flew the flight attendant called me Whitey.

Nipsey Russell

Game shows are like golf and tennis are for some men. It's not like going to work.

Nipsey Russell

I don't want to get in a one-character rut.

Nipsey Russell

I used to say, 'We've always had integration in the South... we just want it now in the daytime.

Nipsey Russell

I start with the joke line and write backward.

Nipsey Russell

My exercise is pall-bearin' for athletes and food faddists.

Nipsey Russell

New York can be any city it wants to be.

Nipsey Russell

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.

Nipsey Russell

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.

Nipsey Russell

I use mother-in-law jokes, kid jokes, tax jokes - anything that works.

Nipsey Russell

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.

Nipsey Russell

Comedy is based partly on mean-spiritedness.

Nipsey Russell

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.

Nipsey Russell