Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I always feel like I'm warring with my womanhood and wanting the world to be better, and with my blackness - which is the opposite of whiteness.
I used to think men were these idiots who just yelled at you on the street. But, part of my maturing was realizing that not all men are evil or monsters.
The world is ready for a more sophisticated 'TMZ.' If there's one thing I've learned, it's that any dummy with a half-decent idea can become a billionaire.
There's such an adrenaline rush for me on stage and having all these people look at you. There's an adrenaline rush from not having things written down, too.
I ended up living in braids. It was the '90s - thin braids were very popular - and my mom took me to a lady's kitchen. I got it done, and I've never stopped.
The Kardashians are walking clickbait - but let's look closer. Do Kim and Kanye affect how society feels about interracial relationships and blended families?
When I wake up in night sweats, that's what I'm thinking about: what if someone grabs me from my past and says, 'I heard you drag me to filth on your podcast.'
I grew up hearing, 'You're pretty for a black girl,' 'You speak well for a black girl...' I was really bookish. I was reading all of the time. I had big glasses.
I thought I was going to be hired as a contributor, but 'The Daily Show' was like, 'Nah, it's an election year, we want you to come over here and work full-time.'
I first fell in love with comedy when I'd visit my granny as a kid. Trips to her house meant staying up late drinking Coca-Cola and watching 'Saturday Night Live'.
We're all trying to catch up with Beyonce. We're all running a race, and Beyonce is up there, and we're all just trying to run and get there. That's my motivation.
I have never been a 'hair person.' Growing up, my mom and my sister, who loved to get their hair done, would always give me a hard time about not getting mine done.
Some days I'll be like, 'I didn't do anything great today,' and I'll be bummed. And some days I'll wake up, and I'm like, 'I am the dopest woman to exist on Earth'.
Ultimately, when I deliver something, a lot of times it will be from a black woman's perspective, but other times it will be just from a satirical, goofy perspective.
Oftentimes, as women and women of color, we are put as supporting characters in other people's narratives. With 'Jessica James', she is the star of her own narrative.
As far as diversity's concerned, there's me, there's Al Madrigal, there's Aasif Mandvi. But I'm not walking around feeling black all the time. That would stress me out.
Basketball would have been the natural sport to play, but it's a little too aggressive for me, so instead I dabbled in volleyball and some good old-fashioned Roller Derby.
There's something missing in all this new new media craziness, and that is something that uses celebrity news as a way to get into a really serious analysis of our culture.
People have their guard down when they're laughing, so they're open to tougher conversations they wouldn't necessarily have. If somebody is guarded while laughing, they're a weirdo.
Allison Jones, a big casting director out there, was like, 'They're casting 'The Daily Show' right now - you should submit a tape.' I remember leaving school to go shoot an audition.
The stories I want to tell are when we're our own heroes and our own enemies, and I don't think that's a rude thing to ask for. I don't think that's something I should apologize for.
I check Facebook to see how everybody from high school's doing. I go on Reddit to see what my weirdos are talking about. Then I go on Tumblr to see what my feminists are talking about.
I feel like now is great time for a rom-com because the genre is sort of being opened up to being told by people that look different from each other or who have different orientations.
You don't have to be African American to really enjoy 'Frisky Business'. But as far as being black, a lot of people in New York have been stopped and frisked, so that hits home for them.
I feel like, all things aside, it's a really great time to be a woman. And I don't want to hear stories from, like, white dudes anymore. Like, not really. I want to hear stories from women.
Oh, I'm obsessed with the Kardashians. Not the way that I think a 13- or 14-year-old girl would be, but I find them fascinating. They are so rich. They are also, at the end of the day, women of color.
The popularity of '2 Dope Queens' just showed there was like a hunger for new stories because we have alternative comics on our show that wouldn't normally be featured on, like, a white guy's comedy show.
I read so much Harry Potter, that's, like, all I wanted to talk about. I watched stuff like 'Lizzie McGuire.' I watched things that were very mainstream but white, and I went to a predominately white school.
Post-'Daily Show' has been so busy, which I've been surprised about. We're basically independent contractors in a way. So you have one gig, and you're worried about never getting another gig again, or at least I do.
I can be pretty harsh and judgmental. I'm a very harsh and judgmental person. I like morals, right and wrong. I like to see things in black-and-white when I can, so I will hold a lot of guys to an impossible standard.
I wanted to do screenwriting. That's what I went to school for, but my major was overfilled, and when I got 'The Daily Show', I was a semester away from officially starting my major, so I never started that in particular.
There are a lot of podcasters that are females of color. And I think that we should be allowed to tell a very specific kind of story. And if you don't like it, you don't like it. But if you do, enjoy the tea! Sip that tea.
The black experience for me has been very interesting. Some days, I wake up, and I feel really black. Some days, I'm like, 'This is me. I'm black. Black Lives Matter. Black pride. Look at my cocoa skin.' I just feel it's my being.
My natural hair is who I am. I have lots of braids, and I have lots of twists, but it's all very low maintenance. I feel like I can get up and go and get out of the house. I just don't have it in me to get my hair done all the time.
I was always told that I acted too white. I was always told that I was going to date a white guy - which, in fairness, was true: I do have a white boyfriend. So they weren't entirely wrong, but all of those things were really damaging.
Thankfully, I already have a mogul I can pattern myself after: Oprah. We're a lot alike. I'm black, I love to relate things people talk about to myself, and people think my best friend and I are lesbians! My strength is that I'm more relatable.
I feel like acting is sort of like that: You're getting so many 'no's all the time. It's just a bunch of no's and a couple of cool yes's. And especially with comedy, too, when you're up on stage, doing live shows, you get immediate yes's or no's.
As I got older, I had to learn to not have people speak for me. It was the first time I recognized, 'Oh, sometimes people are going to condescend to me because I'm a woman, or sometimes people aren't going to give me opportunities because of the way I look.'
I think that's what's so great about 'Jessica James' is you get to sit back and take a moment and realize that this person is black. And some days, this character wakes up and feels black, and some days, she doesn't. That is, for me, a fully black experience.
I'm a middle child, so I have middle-child syndrome. With a middle child, you always have to take in everything and adjust and maybe compromise a little bit so you're able to see both sides of an issue. I'm also a Leo - I love astrology - so that affected me, just being a lion.
Sometimes, you feel like, 'Am I going to be upset about this as a black person or as a woman first? Or am I gonna be both?' Because some things inherently affect black women; some things affect you as a woman and not a black person; and some things just affect you as a black person.
Acting-wise, I love Helena Bonham Carter. I love Kate Winslet. I love Angelina Jolie when she was 'Girl, Interrupted' Angelina Jolie. There isn't anybody that I can definitely point to and be like her. Because I've never felt like I've been able to relate to the women that are famous.
'The Daily Show' was like my family. We had dogs in the office every day, all day. It was just such a warm, beautiful, sweet experience for me. Choosing to leave the show was so hard because I really, really loved everybody there, and I loved what it gave me and the platform it gave me.
I think when you're a tall girl, you feel a little bit like an outcast. You have to go to the back of the photo. You're taller than all the boys. I know I felt more like an outsider. And then as I got older, I just got used to it. I got like, 'I don't date under 6 feet.' That's my policy.
With '2 Dope Queens,' we get the opportunity to love and enjoy each other and have fun being best friends and being women of color and talking about our personal experience. Also, we give an opportunity to elevate voices for many different people that otherwise would not get such a large platform.
The color and the diversity dies out, and it gets whiter and whiter, and that's in any field. There is also this idea that there can only be one gay person or there can only be one Asian-American woman in the office, and so it also perpetuates itself where we are isolated, especially the more successful we get.
I'm a tomboy, but I really love doing my makeup - I find it relaxing and grounding. With 'The Daily Show,' it was easier for me to do my own makeup. In the beginning, I watched a lot of YouTube tutorials. You find a beauty blogger who has your skin tone, and pretty much everything they use will look good on you.
I was doing a college show for the first time, and there was this 20-year-old gay male who's been diabetic his entire life. He said, 'I really wanna get into stand-up.' I was like, 'Oh, my God, do you realize how interesting and inherently funny you are? Go do all the comedy that you wanna do.' I care about that.
I looked up at my mom, and I was like, 'Well, Mom, uh, when you really think about it, C's aren't really that bad. C's are average.' And I've never seen my mom so upset, to this day. I just saw this flash of fire in her eyes, and she yelled, 'Average? You are never allowed to be average, because you look like me.'
It's a really nice way to cut your teeth, doing live shows. It's like going to the gym because you do have to think fast. You are constantly under the threat of people not laughing. Instead of getting hit, people could just not laugh, so you really are trying to mine quickly for the funniest thing you could say in that moment.