Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Me and my son's mother, we've been divorced for a while,but we've been really great parents. We're good friends. We're very relaxed when it comes to our son's time with one another. We have an open door.
The Right doesn't usually threaten to leave the country. When the Right feels threatened, it just declares it is going to invent a time machine to take the country back so that America can be 'great again.'
A lot of comics claimed to be political comedians when George W. Bush was in office just by calling him an idiot. For me, Obama is actually more interesting comically, because not everybody can figure it out.
I never wanted to be in the late-night talk show wars, and I think somehow with 'Totally Biased,' I got caught up in all that. Suddenly, there are articles about how we finally have a black voice in late-night.
I was born in the Bay Area because my dad was a semi-professional photographer and poet who was really into John Coltrane. He's had many lives. My dad's a capitalist to his bone, but he's also a human to his bone.
One thing that people outside Chicago need to understand is that the city is not just one thing. It is one city, but it is huge and sprawling. And historically, it has been one of America's most segregated cities.
Donald Trump giving a speech on Islam is like me giving a speech titled, 'The Best Haircuts to Have If You Really Want to Succeed in Corporate America.' I could do it. But I'd mostly be making it up as I went along.
If I was president, of course I'd want an amendment banning boy bands, but it just wouldn't be right, and I wouldn't do it. Then again... I don't want to paint myself into a corner on this one. Let me think about it.
The size of the city and the nature of how independent the neighborhoods are means that not only do people who live outside Chicago not know what is going on there, Chicagoans often don't know what is going on there.
Just give us 50 years where we're the only ones who are allowed to profit from art, and then you can do whoever you want. In fact, I'll buy you the paint. Whatever you want. Just give us 50 years. 50 years. That's it.
The best version of comedy is when you can get to an issue where, at some point, you're not firmly on one side or the other, and you can see both sides. The more we become about the issues, the more successful we are.
I used to put flyers on cars in parking lots, anything to get people to come to my shows. I was always having to think outside the box, and even to this day, I still try and come up with creative ways to market my shows.
I have had vegan Thanksgiving of tofurkey and soy gravy. And it's not to say that Thanksgiving will ever justify the genocide of the Native Americans. But vegan Thanksgiving - that's just spitting on the graves, isn't it?
Politics and sports are the same thing in some ways. I like sports; I don't like the sports aspect of politics. The conventions are basically the playoffs, and the election's the Super Bowl. To me, it doesn't feel important.
I'm not a politician, I'm not an ideologue, I'm not an organizer anymore. I'm a human being sharing ideas, and those ideas have to feel fresh and from my heart and my head, and I have to feel it. You can't force that feeling.
I was working at Nordstrom Rack, Borders Books, and I was cleaning yachts on the weekends for private parties and being a busboy. I had to break down the tables and roll the forks up in napkins. And I was still doing standup.
For some people, the definition of who is and who isn't an American defies logic, historical accuracy, common sense, decency, good manners, the milk of human kindness, enjoyment in the good things in life, and love of good food.
As a black person in this country, I am always frustrated by the lack of attention my people's issues get. But at least the news and politicians are talking about not talking about our issues. Native issues are basically ignored.
What makes me laugh is hearing the stuff about my son or the stuff about my mom. I was a big fan of Bill Cosby, Eddie Murphy; they talked a lot about their moms and their kids. Those are the things that inspired me to do stand-up.
There is a linear way in which black comedians are expected to talk about race by all audiences - black people are like this, white people are like this - and it really is hard to break through that. I never was doing it that way.
I like playing with that space between laughter and discomfort where your discomfort can also make you laugh, and you're confused about the mixed feelings. That's challenging, and I think that's what makes for some of the best art.
Seattle is a place I've lived only a couple of years, but I feel like I've been adopted by this city. It's like a hug. I've been recognized on planes, in the airport and by cabdrivers. I don't get that anywhere else in the country.
As a person of color, you're in a PhD level racism class, every day. Every day, I'm in a deep racism seminar. And I'm not saying that white people aren't taking that class, but they don't show up that often and they're auditing it.
When things aren't going well for black people, they blame the government. When things aren't going well for white people, they can't blame the government because the government is supposed to be for them. So they blame black people.
HBO was a big thing for stand-up, and when you're a broke kid with absolutely nothing to do on the weekend, there was always video recording your HBO specials. I would just rewind those specials and watch them like they were new again.
Shouldn't one of the goals of prison be getting as many of the inmates as possible back out into the world to be responsible citizens? Aren't we just wasting generations of human potential by keeping over two million people behind bars?
I'm most biased about how white people have to learn to shut up when the conversation of racism comes up. White people have to learn to listen. Whether they agree with what they're hearing or not, they have to know to shut up and listen.
The alt-right is working hard to cloak its desire to create chaos in the streets as free speech. They say they want to air their views, but it's about provoking violent reactions. We all can easily see that this is not about free speech.
The words we use have weight. Whether it's in a conversation with a friend or something said publicly on stage or broadcast. And as performers, we know that because that's why we choose the words we use - that's the whole point of comedy.
When I started doing standup when I was 17, I was talking about being Indian and specifically ethnic jokes. Straightforward stuff that was fairly ignorant that I knew would get the laugh. It wasn't flipping stereotypes; it was using them.
Whether it was a shoe store or working the front desk of a hotel, I was always interacting with people. I'd get that look because I'm half-white and half-Filipino. They could tell I was something, but they really couldn't tell what I was.
The jokes I was always attracted to, and that I would tell for the longest, were jokes where I cared about the subject. Whenever I wrote a joke where I didn't care, even if it was really funny, the third time I told it, it would lose steam.
I would love the opportunity to create my own program. I feel like a TV show with a format of monologue with lots of sketches thrown in could be really fun. But you know, that may never happen. Minimally, I just want to keep making stand-up.
When I was a teenager, black pride became newly popular again. Suddenly a lot of black people were wearing the fake kente cloth and red black and green and Bob Marley. That was sort of my window into finding my own identity as a black person.
If I was just allowed to talk and handle the whole thing by myself without the audience interrupting with laughter, the show would be much more interesting. Think about all the time we waste by waiting for them to finish their noise, you know?
I was a kid, and I would watch standup comics do the 'Tonight Show,' and if Johnny Carson liked you, he'd wave you over to the desk; that pretty much meant you were about to be the most successful comedian in the country for the next few years.
My mom raised us like we were still in the Philippines. She tried to cure everything at home like a real Filipino woman. You had to die to go to the hospital. My mom cured everything with Vicks VapoRub. I should've died nine times when I was a kid!
I keep trying to write the crowd-pleasing slavery joke and the crowd-pleasing reparations joke, but any time you mention slavery or reparations in any detail, it seems to bum lots of people out. That's a challenge I keep putting in front of myself.
I feel like in the old days, it was once it's a divorce, it's a constant fight until they die. That's how my mom and dad lived. They didn't talk to each other. They hated each other. They only spoke through lawyers. It's just a horrible way to live.
When I stand up in front of groups of people who agree with me, I know I have to really step my game up because I can't just sort of meet them where they're at; I have to take them somewhere else. They want you to challenge them and have good ideas.
When you ask your white friends what their cultural heritage is, they don't just say white. They give you a math equation. 'Well, I'm a third German and a fourth Irish and one-sixteenth Welsh and one-fortieth Native American for college applications.'
I want President Obama to want to take your guns away. I don't trust you with your guns. I don't trust you to fire them safely. I don't trust you to store them safely. I don't trust your kids not to find them. I don't trust you not to get them stolen.
I've been approached after shows from people who said, 'I don't agree with anything you said, but I laughed the whole way through.' That's still a little strange to me. Like, nothing, really? But at the same time, that's what happens in a conversation.
January 14, 2000, was my first time on stage, and I've been hooked ever since. I got discovered nationally in Seattle by the now-defunct HBO Comedy Festival, and that led to an appearance on 'Jimmy Kimmel Live' and a path to a professional comedy career.
I love being a friend to my son. We go to the mall together. We shop. He picks out my clothes. We hang out. We go to different cities together. We like the same music. I think that's why he appreciates his mom and me so much - we treat him like a friend.
Stand-up comedians know how to walk into a room, even if you're not performing, just read the temperature of a room, and can easily sort of tell what's going on or what people are sort of feeling in the room, and it allows you to sort of approach people.
When we let cops talk about themselves as a separate community, then we are letting cops wall themselves off from the rest of us. We don't generally do that with any other jobs. We don't talk about the barista community or the Wal-Mart greeter community.
Cops should not be separate from the black community or any community. Their salaries are paid for by the communities they police. They should be working for the communities they police. But as we saw in Ferguson, Missouri, they are not always doing that.
People always talk about the content, in terms of the politics of it or whatever social issues are in it, and it's like, "Yeah, but I'm also a good comic." You could at least talk about the form of it, and I feel like that's always the thing that's missed.
For every stand-up comedian, Just for Laughs is our Super Bowl. Every comic in the world goes to Just for Laughs in Montreal. And they presented me with the Stand-Up Comedian of the Year award for 2018. This is my Oscar; this is my Emmy. That's my baby now.