A biography for Nipsey Russellhasn’t been written yet.
“Game shows are like golf and tennis are for some men. It's not like going to work.”
“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.”
“I talk about things that are front page news.”
“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.”
“Some college athletes don't want to turn pro, they don't want to take the cut in pay.”
“I start with the joke line and write backward.”
“Our country's social revolution lends itself to jokes and I use them.”
“If the social evolution leads to jokes, I use them.”
“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.”
“My mother just liked the way the name Nipsey sounded.”
“There aren't any messages in my social protestations.”
“Word games are very easy for me.”
“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.”
“There's no money in television, but TV provides the wherewithal to get the dollars for live performances.”
“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.”
“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.”
“I was so scared the first time I flew the flight attendant called me Whitey.”
“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.”
“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.”
“I've always had the ability to manipulate words and communicate ideas and thoughts.”