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" For me, in trying to talk about something like policing, it's such a huge issue, and it's an issue that's very local and very personalized to communities, to cities, to legislators, and so, in that way, I think as we started looking into talking about policing, the thing that you realize is that you can't paint everything with the same brush. "

" There are certain things that you can blast through a stereo. You can blast hip-hop. You can blast heavy metal. You can't blast 'All Things Considered.' "

Wyatt Cenac

Heavy Metal

You

Hip-Hop

" So much about getting onstage is creating a connection with an audience that allows you to go different places and try different things. "

" The role of a comedian is to go in and make something funny. That might be a situation where I'm writing, a situation where I'm in control, like standup or something of my own that I'm making, or it might be something like being an actor in someone else's project. "

" When I came up in L.A., a lot of comics produced their own shows, and so if you wanted to have a show in the city, you produced it yourself. "

Wyatt Cenac

City

You

" I think, a lot of times when you do a comedy show, people will turn out for a name they know. So, they get excited when they see Patton Oswalt is going to be on the show, but they kind of cross their arms until Patton Oswalt shows up. "

" I wrote for 'King of the Hill' for three seasons. "

" A lot of the things I do deal with my race, but my race is who I am. I'm an American kid who grew up listening to predominantly hip-hop. I will talk about hip-hop as the music I grew up listening to, and I think sometimes people like to put it as, 'Oh, well, he's talking about black things.' And, yeah, they are, but that's my American identity. "

" I always found myself feeling that happiness rises and frustration trickles down. If the people at the top are frustrated, then everybody down the line feels that. But if the people at the bottom are happy and fulfilled, then they do their jobs a little better, and it goes up that way. "

" I probably learned more about Marion Barry listening to Chris Rock than I did reading a headline. "

" I listen to a lot of Freddie Hubbard. "

Wyatt Cenac

Listen

Lot

" I remember Tim Meadows gave me a radio. It was a radio he didn't want anymore. I gave it to my grandmother, and she had it 'til the day she died. To me, it was, 'I got a thing from Tim Meadows!' I think my grandmother was like, 'I got a thing from my grandson!' "

" For me, when I think of curiosity on television, a lot of times my childhood was shaped by shows on PBS that encouraged and embraced curiosity. "

" I wrote this 12-page 'Luke Cage' comic book for Marvel once, and I got to create a villain. His name was Lone Shark, so there was this running thing of whether it was spelled L-O-A-N or L-O-N-E. I like the idea of 'I'm a lone shark,' and then people are like, 'You are here to collect a debt?' "

" When you put comedy in the room it's supposed to be in, you start learning it's a process. Not everything is a home run. You have singles, and you ground a few out. But ultimately, it's the journey you have with that comedian, whether it's ten minutes or an hour. "

" When I was a kid, I loved really loud things. My grandmother and I went to the Fulton Mall, and I bought a three-piece suit that was paisley. Paisley over the whole suit. I was 6 and thought it was great. My mother took a photo of me in it, sent it to my grandmother, and burned the suit. "

" I was arrested when I was 19 for inciting a riot. "

Wyatt Cenac

Riot

Arrested

" I know for myself, every now and again on HBO, they'll show some of the young comedian specials from the '80s and early '90s, and it's just fascinating to watch those comedians - some of whom are people that are world-famous, like Chris Rock or Judd Apatow - to see the jokes that people had, but also, the way everything looked. "

" When I used to put videos on MySpace, there'd always be someone posting something nasty. To those people, I'd send friend requests, and invariably, they accepted them. "

" Steven Wright can do Steven Wright very well. Not everyone can do Steven Wright's jokes with the same results. "

" Everybody has a stake in the story of policing. "

" Every impression that I do is just a terrible variation on an awful Bill Cosby impression. You're doing an Australian accent, but it's just Australian Bill Cosby; or that's just British Bill Cosby; that's Pirate Bill Cosby. "

" I did a movie a few years back, 'Medicine for Melancholy.' People will come up to me after a set and say, 'I really love that movie. When are you going to do another one?' Or 'I loved you on 'The Daily Show.' Why did you leave?' It's kind of the same as saying, 'I loved you in high school. You should have never left.' "

" I am not looking at my TV show to change the world. "

" I feel like I've always thought of myself as a comedian. "

Wyatt Cenac

Myself

Always

" There's more we can do as a community to try to change what policing looks like in our cities. "

" Kanye is a student of art. He's an art-school-dropout type of kid that will talk about art till the cows come home. "

" One of the things that I was kind of holding on to from 'The Daily Show' was there was an exhaustion that I would feel because we just kind of got caught up in the news cycle. You tell a story, and that's an interesting story, and then the next day we have to drop it and talk about something else. That's so unfair to the story and the people. "

" Sometimes I feel I'm being animated, but it comes off differently. Unfortunately, I was cursed with these sleepy eyes. "

" I have worked in animation on 'King of the Hill.' I've worked in late-night with 'The Daily Show.' I've worked on single-camera stuff, whether it was a movie or television. I have performed onstage. "