Quotes by Bill Cosby

"Laughter brings out the child in all of us."

"A new father quickly learns that his child invariably comes to the bathroom at precisely the times when he's in there, as if he needed company. The only way for this father to be certain of bathroom privacy is to shave at the gas station."

"Always end the name of your child with a vowel, so that when you yell the name will carry."

"Family is conflict and it's something that we all relate to."

"The first-born in every family is always dreaming for an imaginary older brother or sister who will look out for them."

"The heart of marriage is memories; and if the two of you happen to have the same ones and can savor your reruns, then your marriage is a gift from the gods."

"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."

"We're not raising children with the love that we need to."

"I often try to tell kids to think about all the people who love you, don't cry over the one person who doesn't."

"Having a child is surely the most beautifully irrational act that two people in love can commit."

"Every success story has a parent who says, 'over my dead body.' Every success story has an old person who walks up to you and says, when you're acting the fool, 'you know I worry about you sometimes.'"

"My childhood should have taught me lessons for my own fatherhood, but it didn't because parenting can only be learned by people who have no children."

"The truth is that parents are not really interested in justice. They just want quiet."

"Men and women belong to different species and communications between them is still in its infancy."

"A word to the wise ain't necessary - it's the stupid ones that need the advice."

"I don't think you can bring the races together by joking about the differences between them. I'd rather talk about the similarities, about what's universal in their experiences."

"Women don't want to hear what you think. Women want to hear what they think - in a deeper voice."

"I think the part of media that romanticizes criminal behavior, things that a person will say against women, profanity, being gangster, having multiple children with multiple men and women and not wanting to is prevalent. When you look at the majority of shows on television they placate that kind of behavior."

"I guess the real reason that my wife and I had children is the same reason that Napoleon had for invading Russia: it seemed like a good idea at the time."

"I'm not going out and hitting a 95-mph fastball where I can't see the stitches. I'm not on a professional football team looking to tackle a fullback who is built like solid wood. I'm a thinking person, and I've been blessed with the ability to see some things and talk about them in a way that registers in a humorous and funny way."

"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."

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

"I cannot understand how the education of this United States of America has been fooled time and time again. Either make it separate but equal or integrate, therefore it will be equal. And it has been separate and unequal."

"The heart of marriage is memories and if the two of you happen to have the same ones and can savor your reruns, then your marriage is a gift from the gods."

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

"If you have no faith, you've lost your battle."

"By the 1960s, many of us believed that the Civil Rights Movement could eliminate racism in America during our lifetime. But despite significant progress, racism remains."

"Civilization had too many rules for me, so I did my best to rewrite them."

"Sometimes you try to help people, and it backfires on you, and then they try to take advantage of you."

"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."

"I don't have a problem believing in God and Jesus. But in Genesis one has to wonder about these sentences that just go on and end without finishing. The thought is unfinished. Where did Adam go? What is he doing? Hello? There has to be some pages missing."

"Gray hair is God's graffiti."

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

"In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure."

"The main goal of the future is to stop violence. The world is addicted to it."

"Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope."

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

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

"Any man today who returns from work, sinks into a chair, and calls for his pipe is a man with an appetite for danger."

"Raising children is an incredibly hard and risky business in which no cumulative wisdom is gained: each generation repeats the mistakes the previous one made."

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

"Poets have said that the reason to have children is to give yourself immortality. Immortality? Now that I have five children, my only hope is that they are all out of the house before I die."

"Social networking helps reach people easier and quicker."

"Like everyone else who makes the mistake of getting older, I begin each day with coffee and obituaries."

"Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it."

"Did you ever see the customers in health - food stores? They are pale, skinny people who look half - dead. In a steak house, you see robust, ruddy people. They're dying, of course, but they look terrific."

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

"Sex education may be a good idea in the schools, but I don't believe the kids should be given homework."

"Human beings are the only creatures on earth that allow their children to come back home."

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

"I am certainly not an authority on love because there are no authorities on love, just those who've had luck with it and those who haven't."