Aisha Tyler Quotes

In my life and my work, I really try to be just fully myself.

I started out being a stand up and writing my own material. That took me to ‘Talk Soup,’ where I was writing and performing for TV.

One thing about creativity is, when you feel confident and respected, you’re more likely to pitch more interesting stuff because you’re not as precious with it. You feel like, ‘This is going to land, and I’m going to be supported in this.’

I was with someone at 19, and I was married at 23, and I didn’t want kids when I was in my 20s.

Am I going to complain about being typecast as smart? I don’t think so.

I really love being busy because I am – feel like I am at my best when I am busy.

Bravery is the engine of change.

I didn’t mind being in a school with a small African-American population. The African-American-community was very tight, and that was great. But I also wanted to interact with other types of folks.

I was raised by a single dad. Dad’s idea of hanging out with your kid or day care was give her $20 in quarters, drop her at the arcade, and tell her not to talk to strangers.

There’s a clock ticking on the pregnancy thing, but not a clock ticking on adoption.

Dartmouth represented a great opportunity. I wanted to go to the best possible school I could go to.

And I was the only black kid in my school for almost all of my childhood, until I was a teenager. So imagine, if you will, being 6 feet tall by third grade, so essentially being a living maypole.

I was raised by a single dad, and I’ve always kind of liked things that are typically more guy-oriented.

I can’t say that there’s been some big change during my career where all of a sudden everything‘s totally colorblind.

I’m black, and black don’t crack. It does droop.

I try to do more intelligent roles, unusual roles, and stronger women, and that’s helped me a little bit with my casting opportunities.

You can’t control where you were born, the family you were born into, what you look like; you can’t control any of those circumstances. The only thing you can control is how you react.

I am black, and there’s no getting around that, but being black doesn’t define every aspect of my life.

We were poor. My mother got our clothes out of the free box at the church, you know? So much of when you’re a kid is about relating about what you watch on TV. And who‘s got these cooler shoes, and ‘Let’s trade lunches.’ And I was just like, ‘I don’t have a television. I have a rock and a piece of tofu.’

I was born in California, raised a vegetarian, and love science fiction, so don’t tell me how I need to be in order to fit your standards.

Yes, I do get recognized in public. It’s pretty nice.

I grew up on the back of a motorcycle – my dad didn’t have a car until I was a teenager.

Standup comedy is inordinately difficult. If doing something else for a living will make you equally happy, choose that instead. I’m serious. Comedy is punishing.

My goal is definitely to direct features – action movies, that’s my favorite genre. So I would love to do the ‘Halo‘ movie.

I was like, ‘I want us to stop using that term. I’m not a ‘girl gamer.’ I’m just a gamer.’ The reasons I love gaming are the same reasons everyone loves gaming.

I married my husband because I loved him, and I don’t feel like there’s anybody missing from our marriage, but when you think about this person that you love, and you think about what a wonderful thing it would be to bring another person like that into this world, I think that’s the hardest part about all of it.

Once we decided not to get pregnant, I snapped back into work mode, and now I have just been really enjoying my career.

I see the first ‘Bourne’ movie as really kind of a fulcrum in changing the modern action film, where things are really gritty and really character-driven. Think about how the entire Bond franchise was completely radicalized by Bourne.

Instead of focusing on, ‘Oh, there’s a black lady who plays videogames,’ focus on that there’s another person out there who loves the same stuff that you do.

I love Toronto. I love it. I love Toronto. I love Canada. I can’t wait to get back. Can’t wait to have some Timbits.

For the record, I’m a clinical workaholic.

If you have a secret, and it’s embarrassing to you, when you tell that story – you own it. It becomes yours, and no one can use it against you.

I love fashion, and I love how it makes me feel, but it doesn’t rule my life.

I was this weird little bookish giant.

I might not agree with myself in a year.

As a comedian, it really gelled when I started doing standup. Because standup is so much about bravery, especially in the early days. There is no doubt that it is going to go terribly for you over and over and over again. But you cannot get funny without bombing.

It’s hard because you can’t legislate creative diversity. I think it’s more that the gaming community’s more diverse, and they’re going to ask for more diverse experiences. They’re going to demand them.

Wounds turn into scars and scars make you tough.

It’s a thrill to star with such great actors like Kevin Bacon, Kelly Preston, and Garrett Hedlund.

The more people who come forward and talk about how much they love gaming, how much they talk about individuality and diversity, the more gamers of color that come out and gay gamers that come out and everybody talking about what they love – that’s what the community has in common: a love of gaming.

So much of a stand-up’s life is doing live radio and having to be funny and quick on the spot with these strangers, and sort of surgical in terms of how funny I can be in three minutes.

I’ve always been an outsider.

I’m trying my hand at directing. I’m doing an independent movie that we haven‘t started casting yet, but it’s like an edgy version of ‘Lethal Weapon‘ and ’48 Hours,’ only with two women in it.

My husband and I met when I was a teenager, and I’ve been with him for more than half of my adult life.

Dartmouth is a small school with high-caliber teaching. Our classes were all taught by professors, not teaching assistants. I felt like that was a school where I could make a big splash. The opportunities would be grander and more robust for me there than at a school with 40,000 students.

I am absolutely a Giants fan and I’m a Dynasty baby so I was a 49ers fan for a long time.

You know, I read graphic novels but not encyclopedically.

I can’t control what’s fair and unfair. I can’t control the nature of the business or the nature of society or the nature of the world, but what I can control is how I choose to see the world and what I choose to put back into it.

I think people assume that because I talk the way that I talk that I grew up with money, and then I’ve had to say, ‘No, I grew up poor.’ And then I was like, ‘Why do I have to play this game where the only black experience that’s authentic is the one where you grew up in poverty?’ I mean, it’s ridiculous.

I love women, and I have a lot of really close girlfriends, but I’m not one of those women who’s like, ‘Ew – that’s boy stuff.’

For someone to say that marriage is only about procreation is a joke. I didn’t marry my husband to have children. I married my husband because I love my husband.

I really only play shooters, which is a nice way to restrict the amount of gameplay in the house.

The City gets more and more beautiful every time I come home.

After 40, your chances of getting pregnant are between two and eight percent, and in my particular case, they were less than five percent.

I don’t believe in superheroes but I love Batman movies. There’s a part of every person that is entertained by the idealistic, the fantastic.

I’m such a geek, and have always been a real nerd.

There’s a part of every person that is entertained by the idealistic, the fantastic.

The only concept or experience or core belief that I can attribute my other-ness to is that I just started out a weirdo and I stayed a weirdo. And it took me a long time to embrace my outsidership and see it as a strength rather than a weakness.

I think the thing I fear most in life is waking up one day and not feeling challenge – feeling ambivalent or glib about what I have to do that day.

Marriage is a blood sport. Marriage is jousting. It’s disembowelment. It’s just terrible, terrible visceral injuries. It’s not for everybody.

I tell jokes, chat with people, and make stuff.

I’m the kindest, most supportive friend ever, probably to my own detriment, but I hope that I am toughening up a little bit.

If you’re a game company, you want to create a singular gaming experience, and part of that is doing stuff that nobody else is doing. If you’re trying to create a game that feels different, you’re going to create a lead that feels different. It’s not going to be just another white guy.

I went to private school for two years, then Aptos Middle School, and I finished at McAteer. Several of my classmates at those schools are my friends today.

Marriage isn’t a carnival ride.

I love New Orleans. I did a movie there right before Katrina.

I’m sure you can imagine it’s pretty frustrating to have people talking about your private life who don’t know anything about it.

I feel if you believe in equality, you have to believe in it for everybody. And that’s the way I’ve always lived my life.

You know, it’s about getting out there and having a good time. Not about worrying – all these young books for women are like I’m 29 with a closet full of Prada shoes and I can’t get a date. Come on.

I’d be plenty happy if I could keep playing scientists and cops for the rest of my career.

I’ve always loved video games. I played ‘Ms. Pac-man’ with my dad, and I Ioved ‘Galaga’ and ‘Tempest‘ and grew up on the standing arcade games. Even to this day, my dad will call me if he‘s playing ‘Ms. Pac-man’ and hold the phone up to the game.

Pop culture hales you and wants you to fail.

You rarely see women being nice to each other on television anymore.

Comedy’s really about not being afraid to look terrible, look ugly, look silly, make fun of yourself. And that’s something that women are just not socialized to do. But more women are doing it, and more women have examples of women doing it brilliantly.

I’ve said this before, and I’m sure there are people who disagree, but I feel like one of the reasons there aren’t a lot more women in stand-up – and there are many more now; it’s not parity, but it’s getting there – is that women are not socialized to look stupid or silly. They’re socialized to be pretty and precious.