Ali Wong

“You can't just be crass without being witty. Angry crass is horrible.”

“I always really loved comedy. It's the only thing I was ever good at.”

“The word 'supportive' has no place in stand-up comedy. I hate when people are like, 'Support female comedy.' That's not a real genre of comedy. I think if you have true respect for women as three-dimensional creators who are innovative, you wouldn't group them together like that.”

“At the end of the day, I'm not really trying to make a statement with any of my standup.”

“In giving birth, I knew that I would have to take a break after I had a baby; I just didn't know that it would be, like, six weeks long. Taking a six-week break was a very big deal for me. I have never taken that long of a break from stand-up other than my honeymoon, which was 14 days long.”

“I would love to dress like Beyonce: some custom-print, neoprene onesie with no pants.”

“My goal is really to just make people laugh with integrity, like, with something that I still find funny.”

“Some people do specials, like, when they've only been doing comedy for three years or something. Which is fine! But I'm kind of old fashioned, and I knew that I didn't want to do one too early.”

“A lot of comics will say that the thing about specials now is that they're not special anymore because there are so many of them, and they come and go, and they're not really talked about. They just kind of come and go.”

“My dad was a very unconventional Asian American man. He was very much not quiet, not shy, not passive. If he had to fart, he'd do it in the library. He did not care. He was like, 'I don't know these people. I'm uncomfortable, and I need to let it go.'”

“I think one of the hardest things to talk about as a comic is having money because it's so unrelatable.”

“I tried being a stay-at-home mom for eight weeks. I like the stay-at-home part. Not too crazy about the mom aspect.”

“In order to be the best comic, you have to perform in a wide diversity of rooms.”

“Writing is the life blood of everything in Hollywood. Without writers, there are no scripts, no acting work.”

“In Hue, Vietnam, we had savory rice pancakes with crumbled shrimp and pork rinds. I've still never had a version as good.”

“Food is a huge source of comfort for me.”

“Mothering is just so different now from the way it was before. Especially with my mom. She was like the anti-helicopter mom. She was like an inflatable-tube, blow-up-flamingo-in-the-pool mom. Her philosophy was, the situation will declare itself.”

“I really loved being pregnant, especially because people treat you so nice.”

“Whenever I feel mom-guilt, or I feel pressure to be a better mom - to cook salmon on a bed of quinoa for my kids - I just think to myself, 'I... have... suffered... enough.' And then I feel fine about feeding my toddler a bag of chips for dinner.”

“People are always very surprised by how, offstage with my husband, I'm a completely different person... very soft and nurturing.”