Richard Pryor Quotes

“I take what Jennifer Lee reported (in her 1991 memoir) with a grain of salt.”
― Cecil Brown, Pryor Lives!: How Richard Pryor Became Richard Pryor Or Kiss My Rich, Happy Black...Ass! A Memoir

“Although I know I'm one of Warren Beatty's many lovers, I also know I'm the main one of many—the last stop before the ball-and-chain main squeeze, which is what Julie Christie is.”
― Jennifer Lee, Tarnished Angel: Surviving in the Dark Curve of Drugs, Violence, Sex, and Fame : A Memoir

“I buy what I think is a beautiful gift for Richard Pryor. It’s a pre-Civil War cigarette and match holder, with a small black child sitting on top of two yellow haystacks smoking a corncob pipe. Right before dinner, I give it to Richard. He takes one look at it and screams, “I fucking hate it!”
Shocked, I ask, “Hate it? How can you hate it?”
“It’s fucking racist.”
"It’s fucking black art; it may have been racist but it’s not now.
This is an artistic documentation of those times." Now I’m on a roll. “Open your eyes.”
“I’ll open your eyes, bitch.””
― Jennifer Lee, Tarnished Angel: Surviving in the Dark Curve of Drugs, Violence, Sex, and Fame : A Memoir

“I think of the added pressures that black men have when making love because they feel that they are expected to perform in some legendary way—Mandingo sex. What was that expression? Once go black, you can't go back.”
― Jennifer Lee, Tarnished Angel: Surviving in the Dark Curve of Drugs, Violence, Sex, and Fame : A Memoir

“I represent everything that distances Richard Pryor from Peoria, Illinois' ghettos.”
― Jennifer Lee, Tarnished Angel: Surviving in the Dark Curve of Drugs, Violence, Sex, and Fame : A Memoir

“I see us as a black and white version of John and Yoko, a duet of magic and productivity. It feels as though it will last forever. Richard Pryor has finally found his panacea, me.
People look at me as Richard's deliverance: he is the tragic, self- destructive freak no longer.”
― Jennifer Lee, Tarnished Angel: Surviving in the Dark Curve of Drugs, Violence, Sex, and Fame : A Memoir

“We thought the place was haunted, and in fact my least favorite of Daddy’s wives, Jennifer Lee, once told me that the whole house was haunted, and that an entire family had been murdered in that very basement. I later learned she was just trying to frighten us off, because she didn’t like having us kids around, probably because we reminded her that Daddy had been with other women (and he may have liked them better than he liked her).”
― Rain Pryor, Jokes My Father Never Taught Me: Life, Love, and Loss with Richard Pryor

“As I listen to their jive, I try to find my way around the street mind, the black man's mind. Feeling left out, like an ostracized kid at a playground, I try to join in on the "get down" flavor of the dialogue by calling Richard Pryor a nigger.”
― Jennifer Lee, Tarnished Angel: Surviving in the Dark Curve of Drugs, Violence, Sex, and Fame : A Memoir

“Both Richard and I sat silent and watched Jennifer Lee. She came across the room and over to us and swept our chess pieces off the board.
“Bastard!” she announced and started back for the door.
“No. Jennifer, I’ve had it with you. You took your clothes off in front of my son. My son came to me and he was crying and I said what’s wrong but he wouldn’t say anything. I made him tell me, Jennifer. He said you came out of your bedroom naked. You showed my son your pussy, woman!”
“And you hit me,” Jennifer accused him. I realized that they were both showing off right in front of me to embarrass the other one.
“And you spit in my face and called me a nigger!” he shot back.
She came back. “Because I wanted to! Damn you!”
“Well, just leave. I told you to leave. Now leave. I’ve done all I could for you, just leave. You would never treat Warren Beatty like you treated me. Or any of those other white boys you star-fucked.”
He turned to me.
“Man, can you imagine her doing that to Warren Beatty?”
I said, “No!”
― Cecil Brown

“I learned my dad’s live-in administrator (and ex-wife), who was more focused on itemizing his estate than my father’s well-being, grew weary of the sex-workers’ frequent visits to the residence. So at the age of sixty (and totally confined to a wheelchair), Richard Pryor was forced to undergo a needless vasectomy procedure. However I soon learned the real reason for the procedure was more economical, according to on of my dad’s old bodyguards, “Jennifer Lee said they couldn’t have him having no more babies. She felt too much was already going to the children he never even really planned on having. So they she his dick tied off. After that, he lost interest in life.”
― Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, Something We Said: Richard Pryor, a Notorious Word, and Me

“Mel Brooks never even acknowledged my father during Blazing Saddles (1974) initial theatrical run; It wasn’t until the 1978 re-release, the West Coast Writers’ Guild ordered Warner Brothers to re-print the film with Richard Pryor’s name amended to the opening credits sequence (and marketing materials); After Brooks “accidentally” omitted his “Screenplay by” credit. Whenever Brooks was asked about my dad’s potential lead role in the film, the actor/director would insist he really wanted Richard Pryor in the picture but the studio forbade him. But my father still had a record contract with Warner Brothers and his comedy albums were still making money for them, that’s why they reached out to him, letting him know that decision wasn’t theirs. Blazing Saddles was actually the last picture, in a three-picture deal, Brooks had with the studio and he desperately needed it to be a box-office hit (after his first two pictures were financial losers), moreover, he believed Blazing Saddles needed to be an original “Mel Brooks” comedic hit. It was the first real showbiz betrayal my father endured while in the entertainment industry, some colleagues and close friends believed it was actually the worst, and he never really got over it.”
― Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, Something We Said: Richard Pryor, a Notorious Word, and Me