Bill Cosby Quotes

“Man can not live by bread alone… he must have peanut butter.”

“The past is a ghost, the future a dream and all we ever have is now.”

“A sail boat that sails backwards can never see the sun rise.”

“Parents are not interested in justice, they're interested in peace and quiet.”

“A word to the wise ain't necessary, it's the stupid ones who need advice.”

“All Children Have Brain Damage!”

“Human beings are the only creatures that allow their children to come back home.”

“My wife and I have five children, and the reason we have five children is because we do not want six.”

“A person with no children says, "Well I just love children," and you say "Why?" and they say, "Because a child is so truthful, that's what I love about 'em — they tell the truth." That's a lie, I've got five of 'em. The only time they tell the truth is if they're having pain.”

“I am not interested in statistics that tell me things are not as bad as they seem. Things are horrible. I have met people crying about what is happening, but there is no solution yet. Our children are trying to tell us something, and we are not listening. I don't care what the statistics say.”

“People can be more forgiving than you can imagine. But you have to forgive yourself. Let go of what's bitter and move on.”

“People putting their clothes on backwards. Isn't that a sign of something going on wrong? Are you not paying attention? People with their hat on backwards, pants down around the crack. Isn't that a sign of something or are you waiting for Jesus to pull his pants up?”

“We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out.”

“You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything, even poverty, you can survive it.”

“Every closed eye is not sleeping, and every open eye is not seeing.”

“Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it.”

“No matter how calmly you try to referee, parenting will eventually produce bizarre behavior, and I'm not talking about the kids. Their behavior is always normal.”

“Let us now set forth one of the fundamental truths about marriage: the wife is in charge.”

“gray hair is gods graffiti”

“And so the dentist says 'Rinse.' So you lean over, and you're lookin' at this miniature toilet bowl.”

“A grandchild is God's reward for raising a child.”

“Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it.”

“I am proud to be an American. Because an American can eat anything on the face of this earth as long as he has two pieces of bread.”

“I brought you in this world, and I can take you out!”

“The worst thing to do is to die while reading LIFE magazine.”

“If you want to be seen, stand up.
If you want to be heard, speak up.
If you want to be appreciated, shut up.”

“In spite of the seven thousand books of expert advice, the right way to disciplne a child is still a mystery to most fathers and… mothers Only your grandmother and Genghis Khan know how to do it.”

“Nothing separates the generations more than music. By the time a child is eight or nine, he has developed a passion for his own music that is even stronger than his passions for procrastination and weird clothes.”

“The essence of childhood, of course, is play, which my friends and I did endlessly on streets that we reluctantly shared with traffic.”

“When you become senile, you won't know it.”

“And of course, when you see your brother in the toilet bowl… there's a little voice that say, 'I wonder where he would go…'… if it hadn't been for his head…”

“The very first law in advertising is to avoid the concrete promise and cultivate the delightfully vague.”

“It isn't a matter of black is beautiful as much as it is white is not all that's beautiful.”

“Nobody ever says, "Can I have your beets?”

“YOU are a genius!… and I am a genius because I married you.”

“Old is always fifteen years from now.”

“In spite of the six thousand manuals on child raising in the bookstores, child raising is still a dark continent and no one really knows anything. You just need a lot of love and luck - and, of course, courage.”

“When you graduate from college, they tell you to follow your dreams. Does anyone say you have to wake up first?”

“Is the glass half full, or half empty? It depends on whether you're pouring, or drinking.”

“I’m supposed to figure out if the glass is half full or half empty,” I told her.

Without a moment’s hesitation, in a split second, my grandmother shrugged and said: “It depends on if you’re drinking or pouring.”

“There is hope for the future because God has a sense of humor and we are funny to God.”

“I said to a guy, I said, "Tell me, what is it about cocaine that makes it so wonderful?", and he said, "Well, it intensifies your personality." I said, "Yes, but what if you're an asshole?"”

“I have always been proud of my association with Temple University. I have always wanted to do what would be in the best interests of the university and its students. As a result, I have tendered my resignation from the Temple University Board of Trustees.”

“I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”

“My father established our relationship when I was seven years old. He looked at me and said, "You know, I brought you in this world, and I can take you out. And it don't make no difference to me, I'll make another one look just like you."”

“If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.”

“Fathers are the geniuses of the house because only a person as intelligent as we could fake such stupidity.”

“The weatherman is always right, It's his timing that's off.”

“The only thing that you can get into without a lot of trouble is a lot of trouble.”

“My father walked to school 4 o'clock every morning with no shoes on, uphill, both ways, in 5 feet of snow and he was thankful.”

“I know I didn't say anything, but I'm asking your integrity that since I didn't wanna say anything, but I did answer you, in terms of I don't wanna say anything of what value will it have? … And I would appreciate it if it was scuttled.”

“Dentists tell you not to pick your teeth with any sharp metal object. Then you sit in their chair, and the first thing they grab is an iron hook.”

“My wife stood up in the stirrups, grabbed my bottom lip and said "I want morphine!" I said "But, dear —" [vigorously breathing]. She said "You shut up! YOU did this to me!" And on the next contraction she told everybody in the delivery room that my parents were never married.”

“We see a successful, elegant man now, but as a child, an adolescent, his life was not a done deal. Sidney respected his mistakes. When failure came, he never said, "This is too difficult, too hard," he had the resiliency to try again. His life is somewhere between astounding and unbelievable.”

“Carol Burnett put it best when she described labor pains. She said, "Take your bottom lip, and pull it over your head."”

“I have never changed my stance nor my story. I have always maintained my innocence. Thank you to all my fans, supporters and friends who stood by me through this ordeal. Special thanks to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for upholding the rules of law.”