Quotes from Wyatt Cenac

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.

I can't be manic without it feeling false to me.

Whenever I've done jobs, whether it's an acting job or writing job, there's an aspect of it that feels like you help build your piece of it, and then you watch as someone takes it, and they finish building it.

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 we simply write a place off as, like, 'Well, it's just Trump country,' for the people who are there, we do them a disservice on some level. It's their country, too.

I think hard work is definitely a huge thing, but there is something, if you want to call it luck or whatever - a window of opportunity - that is totally outside of your control, and it's that thing that will sometimes separate a good career from a great career.

There's so many shows, whether it's 'Last Week Tonight' or 'The Daily Show' or 'Full Frontal' or 'Late Night With Seth Meyers,' that are really doing great stuff talking about what's going on in the world and what's going on with the president, and those stories that everyone winds up talking about, whether on social media or in their jobs.

What's nice about a lot of Wes Anderson's films is that there's a patience to it. I think that patience brings out a lot more funny things that you would miss otherwise if you just had to make quick cuts and keep the pace, whatever that pace is that bigger budget comedies have to have.

Flights are a good way to catch up on podcasts, but I'll listen to some jazz to fall asleep.

I feel like you could watch 'Grand Budapest' without sound, and it would still be funny.

The majority of the DC and Marvel comic lines are white male characters, and the minute you make Thor a woman or Captain America a black guy, the Internet is filled with hateful comments and people saying, 'That's not what Captain America is supposed to look like.'

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

The thing that I'm known for - at least, depending on what Subreddit you go to - is being a comedian. And so, even when talking about heavy things, I still want to try to use humor to walk us in the door.

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.

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!'

I represent my community, and I represent my people. And I've got to be honest if something seems questionable.

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've had shows where, afterwards, people have commented or hoped I would talk more about something in politics or that I would make a joke about Mitch McConnell or something like that.

I think, with these shows, with 'Last Week Tonight,' with 'Full Frontal,' I think, as these shows have evolved, we all have research departments now.

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 think, with any topical show, it's very easy to find yourself caught up in the news cycle, and working at 'The Daily Show,' I definitely found myself in that, where we would be talking about the last 24 hours.

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

I do love Instagram, but even if I spend 15 minutes looking at stuff, I feel guilty.

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