Quotes from Anjelah Johnson

I love sharing my life with people.

Sometimes you hear about people who can't wait to leave their hometown. I did not have that feeling at all. I love San Jose, I love the Bay Area, and I love coming home to visit.

There's a joke that I do where I make fun of myself for being bow-legged, and I compare myself to a camel and how a camel walks and sits, and that has become a joke that people - when I deliver that joke, people are in tears.

I was lucky to grow up in a culturally diverse area knowing a lot of different people from all different walks of life.

People pay their hard-earned money to come and watch me perform live. That's a blessing.

You don't want to let people down, and that's so hard because you're never going to please everybody. There's always going to be someone that's a naysayer.

I never thought I was going to be a comedian.

One of my best friends growing up was Vietnamese, and he and his mom would teach me how to say certain things so I could impress my nail girls. Then the nail girls would teach me how to count to 100 and basic things like 'Thank you' and 'You're welcome.' It's funny, because any accent that I do now always turns into Vietnamese.

A majority of Bon Qui Qui is my little brother, who is ghetto fabulous. He has no filter whatsoever. He just says what's on his mind.

People want to call me racist for doing the Bon Qui Qui character, and I'm like, 'Look, Bon Qui Qui is a representation of a hood chick. That's it.' There are lots of hood chicks out there: some are black, some are Mexican, some are Salvadorian, and some are white.

I live my life not to please my pastor or my church or fellow Christians. I live my life according to my own convictions and morals and core values and principles, and a lot of times, that's not going to add up to other Christians.

When people didn't really know who I was, and I would get on stage, they would be distracted by what I looked like, so I would have to dumb myself down, in a way, for people to feel safe to laugh.

I went to L.A. to become an actress, and I started from the ground up. I worked as an extra, and then I started taking this joke-writing class because it was free. I didn't want to be a comedian, but I was like, 'Free education? Yeah, I'll take a class.'

When I really started just giving them the truth of who I was, that's when my fan base really started to grow.

I stay far away from political humor.

There's been roles that I have turned down. There's no rule book or handbook... It's just... whatever I'm comfortable with.

Don't try to be anybody else, because that's what I do. I do me. I'm not trying to impress anybody. I'm not trying to please my pastor at church. I'm not trying to even please my mom, to be honest.

My goal's always to connect and relate to my audience. I want them to leave my show feeling like they got to know me better - not only that, but like we could be friends. I want people to leave going, 'Oh my gosh, I could totally hang out with her!'

I like to tell stories and relate to people and get everybody having a good time. I don't ever want to be in a situation people feel the need to tell me their opinion. So I stay away from any kind of material that would cause somebody in the audience to shout me their opinion.

It's always nerve-wracking when people say they look up to you or that you're a good role model. It's such a double-edged sword, because you realize you've been put on this pedestal, and you have to make sure that you don't do anything to get torn down.

People usually want to show me their impression of me, which is always awkward.

I had this little piece of me that always wanted to be an actress, but I would never say it out loud because it was kind of embarrassing because where in San Jose do you become an actress? You don't, really. It was very far-fetched. It was similar to me saying, 'I want to be a princess.'

I do a joke in my stand-up where I say I'm a Christian, but I'm not a Christian comedian. I think that's definitely how I see my acting. I'm an actor who happens to be a Christian.

Few comedians can go to their shows and have people yell out bits that they want to hear. It's like going to see your favorite band and yelling out your favorite songs and to say the words along with them.