Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The audience is so important. Because there's something that I might think is super funny, but if it's just not getting the feedback, I have to let it go.
That's the difference between a great comic and a bad comic - one has great instincts and has a lot of compassion and can feel what's right and what's wrong.
There's a scene in 'Singin' in the Rain' where this guy dances with a giant doll while singing 'Make 'Em Laugh.' I remember loving the pure physicality of it.
I'm always asked how my husband is feeling about my success with a note of concern. He feels great. It's not hard to feel good about your spouse making money.
I have this fantasy of relaxing and doing nothing. But I'm obviously very passionate about stand-up comedy. I mean, I keep doing it. So I must be really into it.
Having a two-year-old is very hard. I feel like I'm in a relationship with an emotionally unstable woman who is also physically abusive and never gets in trouble for it.
You become like a vampire when you're pregnant: your senses are so sensitive, and your emotions are so heightened - that helps with performance because you really feel things.
Aside from Joan Rivers and Roseanne, it's hard for me to think of any female comedian who's had kids and has a serious level of fame - like, the level where your mother has heard of them.
For the first year I lived in New York, I never ate out. I literally just ate lentils and brown rice at home. Sometimes I'd treat myself to this half chicken from Chinatown that cost $3.50.
I didn't expect to be so comfortable handing my child off to a nanny without getting any of her information. As soon as she arrived at my house, I threw my baby in her arms and went to Target.
Some people do specials, like, when they've only been doing comedy for three years or something. Which is fine! But I'm kind of old fashioned, and I knew that I didn't want to do one too early.
I liked that improv and sketch comedy were collaborative, but you really depended on other people and a stage to perform. With stand-up comedy, I liked that you had no one else to blame and depend on.
My dad was a doctor, and he would tell us a lot of nasty, funny stories from the hospital. It was funny to me when I'd go over to other people's houses and they didn't talk about intestines at the table.
There are certainly other female comics who are moms, but I don't know any who are actively touring with their kids. But there are more and more becoming moms, and it's awesome. I feel we're in a super sisterhood.
The most valuable thing my dad taught me was to never care about what other people thought. When he came to my shows, and I'd announce his presence, he'd stand up with his hands clasped in victory and cheer my name.
The concept of 'diversity' was this big moral 'should.' And now with the success of shows like 'Fresh Off the Boat,' 'Empire,' 'Blackish,' and 'Jane the Virgin,' it's become this big business 'must,' which is so great.
A lot of comics will say that the thing about specials now is that they're not special anymore because there are so many of them, and they come and go, and they're not really talked about. They just kind of come and go.
Nothing is off-limits. There's just some things I cannot crack. Politics I can't do. When I start to talk about it, I just get really angry and super sincere. I have never found a way to craft all of that absurdity into funny.
A lot of women do stand-up as a gateway into acting, but I love stand-up, and to be a good stand-up, you have to go on the road a lot. It means going to places in America where they've never seen a Vietnamese person in their life.
I constantly peed in my pants up until the 8th grade and wore an extra-large sailor uniform from kindergarten to 8th grade because my mom was scared I'd grow out of it. So I learned to make fun of myself at school and summer camp.
I have a hoarding problem because my mom is from a third-world country. And she taught me that you can never throw away anything because you never know when a dictator is going to overtake the country and snatch all of your wealth.
People obsess about casting and representation, but really, all the real work is behind the camera. Casting an Asian American into a bad role where they're shoehorned into these stereotypes is worse than not having cast them at all.
I'm addicted to picking my nose. In a world of red tape and bureaucracy, where it takes forever to buy a house or get a cell-phone plan going, it's so instant to just stick your finger up there and go for something your own body produces.
Whenever I feel mom-guilt, or I feel pressure to be a better mom - to cook salmon on a bed of quinoa for my kids - I just think to myself, 'I... have... suffered... enough.' And then I feel fine about feeding my toddler a bag of chips for dinner.
Mothering is just so different now from the way it was before. Especially with my mom. She was like the anti-helicopter mom. She was like an inflatable-tube, blow-up-flamingo-in-the-pool mom. Her philosophy was, the situation will declare itself.
Before my dad passed away, I would miss a lot of baby showers and weddings, sacrificed a lot of family and friend events for dumb road dates. I don't do that anymore. It's gone in the other direction. I'm more inclined to put family and friends first.
My dad was a very unconventional Asian American man. He was very much not quiet, not shy, not passive. If he had to fart, he'd do it in the library. He did not care. He was like, 'I don't know these people. I'm uncomfortable, and I need to let it go.'
Even now, when I go out people are like, 'What are you doing here? Didn't you just have a baby?' But people never ask a male comic when he's out a week later, like, 'Oh my God, you're so irresponsible! What are you doing out? Who is taking care of the baby?'
I'm discovering, and I think other mums are discovering too, that when you become a mum, you don't have to change into this frumpy, wholesome role model who is perfect and loses all of your identity. You can still have the same personality you've always had.
I was so boisterous in high-school, I don't think a lot of boys liked me that much 'cause they were like, 'Oh, she's so loud and so crazy.' But then this thing happens in your late twenties, and guys begin to take note of women's personalities more or something.
The word 'supportive' has no place in stand-up comedy. I hate when people are like, 'Support female comedy.' That's not a real genre of comedy. I think if you have true respect for women as three-dimensional creators who are innovative, you wouldn't group them together like that.
If you want me to perform in Silver Lake - where it looks like 'Vice' magazine threw up everywhere, where all the men are wearing V-necks to their belly buttons, salmon pants, and carrying a screenplay - I'll do it, because they might appreciate a Banksy joke I can't do anywhere else.
In giving birth, I knew that I would have to take a break after I had a baby; I just didn't know that it would be, like, six weeks long. Taking a six-week break was a very big deal for me. I have never taken that long of a break from stand-up other than my honeymoon, which was 14 days long.
My dad grew up with straight-up no running water. He slept in a twin bed with his two sisters and his mom, like 'Charlie And The Chocolate Factory' style: like, feet at the head, feet at the head alternating. And then I think his dad slept on, like, a bed of newspapers on a floor in their apartment.
With my husband, I do really appreciate the fact that we - even though we're different kinds of Asian, there is a cultural shorthand between us, and I don't have to explain anything. I've dated guys before who weren't Asian-American, and it frustrated me when I would have to defend why beans belong in a dessert.
I've seen many female comics that a lot of people haven't heard of who are so funny, and I saw them come up, and they were working so hard, and then all of a sudden they had a baby, and they just got tied up in motherhood, and eventually, they kind of just stopped doing stand-up, and I thought it was such a shame.
My dad was obviously a really quirky, unconventional Asian man who didn't care about what other people thought. When he would fight with my mom, he would be really dramatic. He would be like, 'Devil, get away, for I am God's property.' He would say crazy things that were so melodramatic but so theatrical and funny.
My husband and I went to Japan for our honeymoon, and you look at, like, the presentation of the food, and it's ridiculous. It looks like a Mondrian painting or something. Everything looks like a bunch of little Hello Kitty erasers when you eat a little bento box in Japan. It's so precise and beautiful and processed and neat.
