A biography for Anjelah Johnsonhasn’t been written yet.
“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.'”
“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.”
“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 think people know what they're getting with my name, because they've seen my specials on Netflix.”
“My stand-up is clean; it's not too edgy. I've played it safe since the beginning.”
“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.”
“There's been roles that I have turned down. There's no rule book or handbook... It's just... whatever I'm comfortable with.”
“I'm from San Jose, CA, which is very diverse, and I grew up around a lot of different types of people.”
“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've realized that I can never not do the nail salon joke, and I will have to talk about Bon Qui Qui for eternity.”
“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.”
“I'm so lucky to do what I do, traveling across the country and making people laugh.”
“I'm a very observational storyteller, and I'm always relational - a lot of stories stem from relationships, whether it's me with my husband, me with my mom or my siblings.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Everyone who comes to my show has their own struggles. There's so many people dealing with so many things; I love that I get to be part of their healing process by making them laugh.”
“People usually want to show me their impression of me, which is always awkward.”
“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.”