Top 47 Quotes & Sayings by Nipsey Russell

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American comedian Nipsey Russell.

Last updated on November 8, 2024.

Julius "Nipsey" Russell was an American actor, comedian, poet, and dancer best known for his appearances as a panelist on game shows from the 1960s through the 1990s, including Match Game, Password, Hollywood Squares, To Tell the Truth, and Pyramid. His appearances were often distinguished by short, humorous poems he recited during the broadcast, which led to his nickname "the poet laureate of television". He had one of the leading roles in the film version of The Wiz as the Tin Man. He was a frequent guest on the Dean Martin Celebrity Roast series and often appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien during the program's early years.

American - Comedian | September 15, 1918 - October 2, 2005

Source: Wikipedia

I began working on stage in Atlanta when I was 3, doing a dance act with the Ragamuffins of Rhythm. Later I became a juvenile straight man for the older comedians. After that I worked out a stand-up act.

Nipsey Russell

He who turns the other cheek will get hit with the other fist.

Nipsey Russell

Word games are very easy for me.

Nipsey Russell

New York can be any city it wants to be.

Nipsey Russell

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

Nipsey Russell

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

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'm living the life of liberty, happiness and pursuit.

Nipsey Russell

There aren't any messages in my social protestations.

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

Our country's social revolution lends itself to jokes and I use them.

Nipsey Russell

If you see me on the street, don't just say, 'There goes Nipsey.' Walk over and say, 'Hello Nipsey,' and give me a warm slap on the back and hand me a few dollars.

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 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

I feel the life expectancy of a comedian is 30 seconds. If you don't hook an audience in half-a-minute, you're dead.

Nipsey Russell

Six good guest shots on top shows during one season are more than enough and any producer who wants to make me happy could offer some floating guest dates for discussion and panel shows. It's generally agreed that I love to talk, so shows of this kind are right down my alley.

Nipsey Russell

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

Nipsey Russell

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

Nipsey Russell

Comedy is based partly on mean-spiritedness.

Nipsey Russell

Some college athletes don't want to turn pro, they don't want to take the cut in pay.

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

Many times good actors I have known in New York accept series. I tune in at the beginning of the new season and think 'He's really working.' But six months later, if I tune in again, the actor is on a treadmill, grinding it out as best he can, and he can't help it.

Nipsey Russell

Divorces are getting so common that a woman I know doesn't bother getting a new marriage license. They just punch her old one and give her a transfer. You can't teach an old dog new tricks - so she keeps changing dogs.

Nipsey Russell

I start with the joke line and write backward.

Nipsey Russell

Humor is based on the way a man looks at life's ironies, and being a member of a minority group can certainly be ironic.

Nipsey Russell

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

Nipsey Russell

My mother just liked the way the name Nipsey sounded.

Nipsey Russell

I talk about things that are front page news.

Nipsey Russell

There's no money in television, but TV provides the wherewithal to get the dollars for live performances.

Nipsey Russell

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

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

In all my years in show business - on stage, clubs and TV shows - my audience has been 75 percent white. In Las Vegas and Atlantic City I look out at the crowd and only see a few black faces here and there. But I can't allow myself to be conscious of the race factor. I couldn't perform my best under those conditions.

Nipsey Russell

I've always had the ability to manipulate words and communicate ideas and thoughts.

Nipsey Russell

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

Nipsey Russell

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

Nipsey Russell

Jack Paar was my first TV patron saint.

Nipsey Russell

One character mistook me for the model and remarked 'That Man-Tan sure works wonders!' That ain't Man-Tan. I'm tan, man. From my head to my toes.

Nipsey Russell

My only mission is to look for fun, the lighter side of life. I spell it fool-osophy.

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

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

During all the years I entertained at the Baby Grand night club in Harlem, 90 percent of the audience was white. But when I tried to break Into television, I was told that white folks wouldn't understand what I was talking about.

Nipsey Russell

When you a 'has-been', just think of where you HAS-BEEN.

Nipsey Russell

I'm all for ERA. I want to see women equal to men - not so damn superior like they've been.

Nipsey Russell

If you owe too much on American Express, and your Diner's Club notes are too hard, take a loan on your Visa, and pay it off with your MasterCard!

Nipsey Russell

Pro and con are opposites, that fact is clearly seen. If progress means to move forward, then what does congress mean?

Nipsey Russell

The kids are saying 'Make Love, Not War', and I'm beginning to think they're right. For war costs millions of dollars a day, and love--just a few bucks a night!

Nipsey Russell

Top 47 Quotes & Sayings by Nipsey Russell

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