Sometimes you can make friends, and sometimes you can take friends. Sometimes people want to be friends with you, and you gotta be like, ‘Okay, I can deal with this person’s personality and be their friend, but not necessarily do I have to change who I am. I’m not gonna change myself to be their friend.

It’s great when a director like Cameron Crowe can take what you do and fit it into what he’s doing. If someone’s a fan of you already, they can take what you do and make it work for what they’re doing. You don’t know their vision, and you’re thinking, ‘How is this guy going to take what I do and make it work in this movie?’

I should be European. I’m long and lean. I’d look good in a trench coat.

I’m nice with damn kids, man. Kids love me. I can bounce back and forth. I can discipline kids and I can get into the mind of a kid.

Being a parent is about your survival. Surviving the terrible two’s is the most important thing. Kids get heavy. Quite literally. They’re heavy to lift up when they’re throwing tantrums.

I never write jokes, I just try to make myself laugh.

I have to satisfy my audience.

Police blog or entertainment news, it’s just good to see your name in print.

People love things about Hollywood. People love to see the inside of what’s going on.

I most resemble Benjamin Button. I evolve. I attach myself to the heartbeat of whatever is going on at that particular time, or I just chart a new path.

Man, you can come see me six or seven times in a row and you’ll never see the same show twice, because I don’t like to be robotic onstage. I like to perform for that particular audience.

That’s what I am; I’m a drip. You still get hydrated, you still get your nutrients, just a little at a damn time.

I did a club one night – the speakers were old as hell. My jokes were coming out in black and white.

It’s not even race; it’s a certain type of person that gets ‘Pootie Tang.

When you speak directly at things and don’t say you’re going to try to do something or that you hope to do something, the universe will work with you. Think about it this way – a boomerang goes out and comes back to you if you throw it. If you throw it out at the universe, it will come back down to you on Earth.

I don’t like to dabble in anything I don’t do well. I don’t talk politics.

Live TV has an amazing pace to it. You’ve got to be able to think quick, make changes last minute, and be funny and fast.

For me, standup will always be some part of my life, and other things will move around and find their place.

I believe, even when I’m doing my standup or my acting or whatever I’m doing, I believe in painting pictures.

I try to dress smooth, I try to keep my face shaved, I try to keep my head cut. I try to do all the things to keep it smooth going!

I thought ‘Pineapple Express’ was hilarious.

I may even show up behind the camera. I love to put things together; I love to give direction. I have a great eye for pace.

Curb Your Enthusiasm set me up so perfectly. That was one of my favorite shows before I got on it. That started a whole different level of a story for me. I didn’t know how to process it until after I got on the show and realized what the purpose of it was.

I talked about everything, man. I’ve always written material that everyone can laugh at. I talked about growing up. I did a lot of physical comedy. That was my thing. I was a physical comedian. I did anything and everything from running on a treadmill, I can paint a picture on stage of anything.

If I had signed my fourth season of SNL, I wouldn’t have ever had the opportunity to do Curb Your Enthusiasm. If my buddy OG Pearson wouldn’t have passed away, I wouldn’t have been in L.A. for his memorial, and I would’ve never auditioned for Curb.

You have to fail, man, but you cannot allow failure to stop you from doing what you must do. Failing is just as good as succeeding in a lot of ways. It’s how you react to it all. You can react to success the wrong way and be a total failure. Or you can react to losing with your whole heart, learn from it, and be a huge success. In stand-up, I’ve learned to know when I’m burning it up or when I’m being so-so. That’s experience. I learn every single time I’m on a stage.

You can’t take everything that is offered to you. I pass on a lot of stuff, because I truly believe that I will shine better if I could do it 200 percent rather than do it 80 percent and make it so-so.

My wife and I have been together for 11 years, and seven of those married. We got married on 07/07/07. We support each other 150 percent. We have fun. We are a modern-day Sonny & Cher. I don’t sing. My wife sings. We’re so different, but so alike. We got that ying and yang thing going on. You see it, but you don’t know how it works.

I admire Russell Simmons. He is a successful dude that has done a little bit of everything. He keeps it moving, and he’s still doing things. Larry David is also amazing. He is honest and blunt. A creative genius.

You don’t want to take the world over with a whole hamper full of dirty clothes. That’s the main thing people overlook. And take a shower, take a bath every day.

I’m putting on a suit and tie when I go see The Great Gatsby.

Damn! This flight attendant treating us like we won these first class tickets in a contest.

Some of the best dramatic actors have started in comedy.

It’s an ongoing joke that a black man is always the first one to get killed in movies.

A lot of comedians are selfish.

I am the comedy version of ambidextrous. I’m working with my left and right hand. I’m the two-sided coin. I’m all of those metaphors you can think of. I’m the interracial couple. I’m BET and CBS.

We came here to pick up chicks, not talk about dicks.

I’m afraid one thing – I don’t like heights. Heights bug me out. I’m not cool with heights. I refuse to do a comedy show 12 stories up. I’m fearless about everything else.

I would only take a role that I know I’m comfortable in and I can do. I’ve turned down plenty of things because I’d feel it’s not me, and I wouldn’t want to come on someone’s project and flip that.

Sometimes, when you get a girl pregnant, you blame the condom. His condom broke that night.

When I started stand-up, the first thing I did was to take an improv class.

Just broke up with somebody. Well, it wasn’t really a break up, it was a booty call I might have took too serious.

Mel Gibson is losing it. I don’t know how people still supporting this dude’s movies like it’s all good. That dude is nuts. All you gotta do is shut him down and don’t support any of his movies.

I’m on my version of the protein diet, but there ain’t no protein in it. It’s a Krispy Kreme doughnut between two Cinnabons. And you soak it overnight in Red Bull. Then you chase it with a Snickers.

If your boss asks you why you’re comin’ in late, you say it’s ’cause you stayed late.

Believe it or not, I write on stage. I can’t write anywhere else; I have to be in a moment. I also have to challenge myself to make something funny out of a premise. I never have my own jokes written. I have to change things as I go along, and I have to entertain myself.

This Italian restaurant I’m at is authentic! When they seat you, they give you a mustache.

I drive a big Dodge truck. I drive American cars.

You gotta improvise in life. You gotta improv if the police pull you over.

As far as standup, everybody has a vehicle they are driving. If what you do works, it’s like playing golf. If you can master that one swing over and over again, you will be successful. That’s what standup is. You have to have a central move and it has to be yours. You have to own your comedy, own what you do.

I think comedy evolves constantly. I reinvent myself all the time. I always find a way to entertain myself because I truly believe you have to entertain yourself in order to relate it the right way to your audience.

I could never live with you; not ’cause I’m racist or nothing. It’s just ’cause as a black man in America, I need to have someone I can come home and complain about white people to. And that just don’t work with my white wife.

Keep it real by being straight forward. Don’t pull no punches on people. It’s better to tell somebody than just lollygag around, letting them think they’re living their life the right way. Because some people don’t know what the hell they’re doing, they don’t know if they’re living the right way or making the right decisions. Some people don’t know that.

There’re rules to being the side chick. Rule number one: you’re number two.

If a director brings a guy to their movie who does improv, they’ve got to let him do what he does – otherwise it’s like bringing Michael Jordan to your basketball team and telling him to just pass the ball and don’t shoot.

White people think they can just do what the fuck they want to do all the time!

My mother is old, but she jokes around. She lives in a senior living home. After a certain age some people don’t like joking. They take her sarcasm the wrong way. I get that from my family. Everybody talks over each other. The first time I took my wife to my family reunion, she said, “I don’t know what’s going on. I can’t do this!”

My father always dressed nice, and he always wore shades and a hat. Plus he always wore shined shoes. He taught me: “Always get there before you get there.” That means always dress nice. Even if you’re not the most handsome man in the world, you must have handsome characteristics, such as a handsome personality and attitude.

I got the most expensive piece of paper on your wall that don’t do shit. I’ll tell you what I did with mine: I took it down, I shredded it, I stomped on it, and I shredded it to a nice, fine white powder and I snorted it like cocaine. I packaged the rest and sold it to some white girls.

I am addicted to hockey now. I’ve seen it on TV, but to be there? I had no idea that white people were having so much fun without me.

My wife is a vegetarian. When my wife is with me, I eat vegetarian. When she’s not, I eat meat. I’m just being honest.

I quit my day job the day my daughter was born. I remember flying to Cleveland and hitting a thunderstorm, which caused the plane to lose pressure, and the oxygen masks fell from the ceiling. We felt the plane dropping; the pilot was taking it down to regain cabin pressure. My heart was in my stomach. I found out after landing that her mom was in labor. I did the show and came back to New York. By the time I walked into the hospital, my daughter was being born. She was waiting for me. She’s a sweet daddy’s girl. She’s premed. She has her own pie company. She works for Habitat for Humanity.

When I first started doing comedy years ago, I used to be the biggest Michael Richards fan. I used to love this dude. He was on a TV show called ‘Fridays,’ and man, he was tall and lanky – and I was tall and lanky. I love physical comedy, and he was a physical comedian, and I said, ‘Man, I love this guy.’

You know what I like? I like classic stuff. I like ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ – the variety of characters was so amazing to me.

I wish black people had a flag they could put into the ground, like when the troops stormed Iwo Jima.

Oh, yeah, I’ve seen ‘Seinfeld’ 1,000 times.

True Yankees fans know an up-and-coming player when they see one.

I’m trying to be the Jay-Z of comedy one day. I don’t know if there’s any comedy moguls out there, but I would love to be the first comedy mogul.

I love to pitch things that I believe in and products that I love to use.

I think what I do in my acting world and what I do in my standup world is bring up a brand that I want to bring across. Once you figure out your brand and what you do, it’s kind of easy at that. You end up getting your audience.

I tell people all the time, as I was going through my process of being a comedian or being an actor and a writer at ‘SNL,’ I tell people that everything you do is all a piece of your puzzle to determine where you’re going to end up at.

I’ve done everything. Selling door-to-door fire extinguishers… In bars, I used to repair those machines that have 10 different buttons on them to spray club soda and seltzer.

I’ve had jokes stolen a thousand times. But if you can do it better than me, you can have it. I’ve had jokes stolen from me in the club when I’m next on stage. And my brain will start to turn, and the gears will start turning, and I’ll go onstage and create a whole new bit.

Women put guys through tests all the time.

I loved Peter Sellers. I thought he was the perfect mix of physical comedy with out-of-the-box humor. I loved his tone; I loved his physicality; I loved everything about what he was doing as a comedic actor.

‘The ruckus’ is different experiences you go through throughout your life which builds your ruckus points up – your tolerance. You’ve got to have a high tolerance for dealing with stuff all the time.

I have big hands. I can’t do the touch-screen thing. I’m a button guy. I want to press buttons.

I was the hallway clown in high school.

I’m sure back in the Greek days or the Roman Empire days, when guys fought in arenas and were fighting lions, people were talking smack. Every era in history has someone talking smack. No way you can have talent and not proclaim your victory.

I just always found it easier to be the same guy onstage as you are offstage.

I’m big on facial expressions, and I’m big on mannerisms, which I find to be hilarious.

What happens in improv is you create your own storyline.

You got to start by doing little things if your quest is to take over the world.

My life is gardening, cleaning around the house and power washing.

Improv relies just as much on listening as it does you delivering dialogue. That’s the hard for some people. Some people just concentrate on what they’re going to say, and they’re not listening. You have to listen in order to see where the other person is going to.

I’ll drive down the street, and I’ll practice improv. I will sit there at a red light and see two guys talking to each other, and I will just start playing both characters. I can’t hear them, but I can see their mouths moving, so I’ll just put words in their mouths.

You want your lady to be a contortionist. What man wouldn’t want a lady who’s a contortionist?

You turn hotdogs with tongs. Don’t you ever use those tongs on a hamburger.

I can apply myself to the format of ‘SNL,’ I can apply myself to the format of ‘Conan,’ but at the same time, I’m still being J. B. Smoove. I’m not changing up my style, I’m not changing up how I think, what’s funny to me, my delivery, the way I carry myself.

When you’re babysitting a kid, all you’re seeing is a version of them, a small dosage.

There’s book smart, there is street smart, there’s relationship smart, there’s too many different kinds of smarts to know all of them. Everybody doesn’t know every kind of smart. There’s money smart, there’s movie smart, there’s computer smart. There’s just too many different kinds of smarts for people to know all the smarts.

I’m a thief. I steal scenes, I steal opportunities. I am the ultimate thief. I got sticky fingers.

I wouldn’t want to be someone’s roommate, that’s for sure. You can’t do certain things, you can’t leave the bathroom door open…you can’t put your feet on the couch, you can’t hide stuff in the couch.

I live in New York right now but I’m originally from my daddy’s nuts. We all are. Think about, we the lucky ones – we made it. You all are winners. That’s the first race you ever won.

I’m, like, everybody’s friend. I’m one of those dudes. I can be friends with anybody. Any race of person, any personality, I can kind of deal with them. I accept different types of people.

You buy a new iPhone, a few months later, another new iPhone comes out, and you get online to buy another one. You can’t get enough. You are addicted to Apple.

When you’re on stage performing stand-up, things only happen one time. I’ve done bits where I improv a joke, and people are dying. The next show, I try to repeat it, I can’t do it. Because with the first audience that was our moment. It can’t happen the same way again. We were all there: a certain type of people were at that show and we all got it.

In my stand-up, I’ve always been loose. If there’s a curtain onstage, I’ll use that in my act. If there’s a door, I’ll use the door. I always like to use everything at my disposal, which makes each show a little different and a little more fun.

You can’t let people take advantage of you. Go get that ass.

At the top of this list has to be “get in that ass”. It’s the ultimate Leonism to get you through life.

You ever taste some damn chicken so horrible, that you wished the chicken would show up at your house and show your lady how to cook him?

You know how you put peanut butter on a piece of bread and the bread falls – it never falls on the bread side down, it always falls peanut butter side down. That’s because of gravity.

To be a true comic, you have to have a signature move. You ever watch wrestling? And your favorite wrestler has the one move that he always does to finish his opponent off, right? Like when he climbs on the rope, and he always jumps off the top rope and finishes off his opponent – that’s what a comic has.

Before I got into stand-up, I used to be a hip-hop dancer in a crew, and my name was J. Smoove, and my partner was J. Groove.

I have my website, The Ruckus, which is an Internet site, similar to the Funny or Die format, where people post funny videos. I get a chance to rate their videos; they get a chance to blog and kick it with me.

You can wait for things to happen for you or you can make things happen for you.

Remember Tupperware? That was the toughest stuff ever. Why can’t they make a phone out of Tupperware?

Father’s Day just be Mother’s Day the sequel.

Pursuing your dreams involves you accepting where you want to go. Don’t allow anybody else to talk you out of things or discourage you from doing whatever you want to do. You can hold on to your dream and never pursue it or you can start pursuing it. If you can see it, or if you can envision it… it can happen.

All you wanna do in life is do what you do well. That’s when you’re happiest.

Sometimes you got to put somebody in their place, let them know that you mean business and you’re a grown ass man.

I don’t consider myself a stand-up comedian. I consider myself a performer; a comic as opposed to stand-up comedian. Stand-up comedians stand there and do their bits; I break every rule in creation. If there’s a rule that can be broken in stand-up, I’ll do it.

You’re trying to make someone wet their pants and you’re trying to make somebody crap in their pants. That’s the motivation of a comic. Who else has that power?

Comedians are therapists. People honestly think we’re doing it for ourselves. No. If we wanted to do stand-up for ourselves, we would perform in front of a mirror and never go to a club. We are giving this away. Some people are going through so much in their lives, they want to hear something else that’s going on in the world and laugh.

Let me tell about Tennessee. If your car breaks down in Tennessee, you have just moved to Tennessee.