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.

Chappelle frames comedy as both vocation and livelihood: he wants the freedom to create (“tell my jokes”), the ordinary human goods fame can threaten (“time with my children”), and the craft’s public purpose (“entertain people”). The turning point is his insistence on an eventual exit from show business—treating celebrity as temporary rather than identity. “Empty-handed” signals more than money: it implies ownership, dignity, and fair compensation for work that can be exploited by contracts, networks, and audience demand. The quote captures a negotiation between artistic autonomy, family life, and the economics of entertainment, asserting that walking away should be a choice made from strength, not depletion.