“When you’re a young comedian the first thing you want to do is get a laugh.”

Sometimes I have young comics that ask me, “What should I do when I meet an agent or a manager and they ask me stuff?” And I say, “Well, they always usually ask, ‘Where do you see yourself in five years, 10 years, 15 years?’ And it’s good to have an answer for that.”

The audience is not your boss. They are your collaborators and when you collaborate with someone you don’t have to listen to everything they think or say.

If you’re driving down the street, you keep the neck forward. So that way you can clear out the lanes.

Netflix is very protective with their information .

The audience is your first collaborator with the material. If that makes sense.

I am afraid of abandonment, and, if you will, in a really existential way, being exposed as a fraud. Everyone’s afraid of it, and I definitely am. This is a fear that motivates. Oh, and heights. And getting stabbed.

You can fit two United States and maybe a third one into the entire continent of Africa, but on a map we make the entire continent of Africa look like the size of the United States, which is why a lot of people don’t know that Africa is a continent. They think it’s a country because it looks as big as we do.

I read recently that I was born in Arizona. I wasn’t born in Arizona. I was born in New Mexico, but I can understand why people might confuse those two Southwestern desert states.

The album [Blaxistential crisis] artwork is by a friend of mine who is a brilliant artist named Sara Pocock. We’ve been friends for a couple of years and she worked with me on the animation. I believe she’s still working over at BuzzFeed.

I was processing a lot of different things and kind of looking over a lot of things and rethinking my childhood.

One time I was really close to Steve Martin. I was too afraid to actually go talk to him, but I’ll count that as meeting.

I’m working with a lot of legends who are brilliant who are people I’ve looked up to from a very young age.

First of all I love Empire Records and That Thing You Do and all the movies he did from that era. He hates when I bring that up.

Shrimp are the insects of the ocean. They’re bottom feeders. So they’re delicious, but they’re the bugs of the sea.

As you go on you realize “Okay I know how to get laughs but am I saying things I want to say? Am I writing jokes that I like?” You get to a point that is that so you move on.

I’ll get laughs in the places I don’t want them and that makes me realize the direction I want to go in. I don’t mean to get too deep into comedy here.

They proved that if you quit smoking, it will prolong your life. What they haven’t proved is that a prolonged life is a good thing. I haven’t seen the stats on that yet.

You have to understand how bad I wanted to be a comedian, how much I loved doing it. I still can’t believe I get to do this for a living and have people come up and want to see me.

The role of the comedian is to say ‘Wait a minute’ when a consensus starts to form.

For aspiring comedians? Don’t listen to me. Just go on stage and do what you think is funny.

Whatever talent I had, I’m sure it helped that my parents were in the business and that I grew up around actors, comedians and directors.

I want to have fun. Life ain’t no dress rehearsal. I want to have fun. I’m a comedian; I ain’t no politician. So everything I do is with humor, with love.

I’m funny. I’m a comedian. I’m not a clown.

I’m not a politician, I’m a comedian. I know my limitations.