11 Dave Chapelle Quotes About His Kids, Wife & Parenting

September 14, 2024

It’s been a minute since Chappelle Show, when even your mom was running around the house yelling, “I’m Rick James, bitch!” (Man, that was a weird afternoon.) But, since leaving the show, and South Africa, and Oprah, Chappelle returned to doing that thing he’s best at, stand-up comedy. These days he’s just a chill dad living out on a farm in Ohio and raising 3 kids. Here’s the collected parental wisdom from comedian who always gets high … praise.

On What’s Really Going On On Sesame Street

“As an adult I realize that Sesame Street teaches kids other things. It teaches kids how to judge people and label people. That’s right. They got this one character named Oscar. They treat this guy like shit the entire show. They judge him right to his face. ‘Oscar, you are so mean. Isn’t he, kids?’ ‘Yeah. Oscar, you’re a grouch!’ He’s, like, ‘Bitch, I live in a f—ing trash can! I’m the poorest motherf—er on Sesame Street. Nobody’s helping me.’ Now you wonder why your kids grow up and step over homeless people, like, ‘Get it together, grouch. Get a job, grouch.'”

On Having Biracial Kids

“My wife is Asian, and my kids have somehow turned out to be Puerto Rican.”

On Fatherly Wisdom

“My father told me ‘Name your price in the beginning. If it ever gets more expensive than the price you name, get out of there.'”

On “The Talk” About Police And Minorities

“Kids, don’t run from the police. If you’re ever in a situation when you feel like running, just start dancing. Because I know how the police think, ‘Oh, it’s just another n—-r dancing. Nothing unusual about that.’”

On Not Cursing Around The Kids

“We took the kids to Disney World, and everybody at the park is yelling, ‘Rick James, bitch!’ Hey man, you mind not calling me a bitch in front of my kids? Even Mickey Mouse did it.”

On Getting Some “Dave” Time

The only time I ever do it is when my wife slips up and tells me how long she’s going to be gone. ‘Hey Dave, I’m going to take the kids to my mom’s for a little bit, I’ll be back in a couple of hours.’ A couple hours, are you sure? That’s 2 hours of jerking off. I can really get it in.”

On Raising Ambitious Kids

“I spoke at my old high school and I told those kids, ‘If you want to make it out of the ghetto, you got to focus, you gotta stop blaming white people for your problems, and you’ve got to learn to rap, or play basketball or something. Either do that, or sell crack. Those are your only options.’”

On The Company You Keep

“If you don’t have the right people around you and you’re moving at a million miles an hour you can lose yourself.”

On Getting Along With Family

“Everyone loves their family but it’s good if you can like them too.”

On Work/Life Balance

“I want to tell my jokes. I want to have time with my children. I want to entertain people. And at one point, I’ll walk away from show business. But I don’t want to walk away empty-handed.”

On The Mysteries Of Creation

“My oldest son is 3. He made me a necklace out of macaroni. I said ‘That shit is baller.’ He painted the macaroni green and put it on a string. He tied it around my neck and told me he was proud of me. I got choked up. He thought I was sad — that’s how smart he was — he said, ‘Are you sad, daddy?’ I said, ‘No. You’re too young to understand this son, but this is f—ing crazy. You used to live in my balls, man. Now you making jewelry out of macaroni. You a bad motherf—er.’”