Dave Chappelle

You got to be careful of the company you keep.

If I can make a teacher's salary doing comedy, I think that's better than being a teacher.

I was doing sketches that were funny but socially irresponsible. I felt I was deliberately being encouraged and I was overwhelmed.

Something about New York, man: You can do more comedy there probably than you can anywhere in the world. If you're interested in being funny, New York is the place to go.

Comedy is a very approval-oriented field.

I got a lot of positive people around me.

The hardest thing to do is to be true to yourself, especially when everybody is watching.

One of the things that happens when people make the leap from a certain amount of money to tens of millions of dollars is that the people around you dramatically change.

I still think people do have racial hang-ups, but I think one of the reasons I can joke about it is people are shedding those racial hatreds.

There's a lot of people who don't want anything from me but to laugh and have a good time. You see them at the show and they like - they dress up to come see your show and stuff. And they pack these auditoriums and it's a lot of fun, man. It's like, this is how I started, and it's still fun for me.

I want to tell my jokes. I want to have time with my children. I want to entertain people. And at one point, I'll walk away from show business. But I don't want to walk away empty-handed.

I care about the work I do. But I'm not going to say that money's not an issue.