“Success is not the absence of failure; it’s the persistence through failure.”
― Aisha Tyler
“Bravery is the engine of change.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“Wounds turn into scars and scars make you tough.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I’m, like, a binge gamer.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I think, like most gamers, I talk a good game.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I grew up on the back of a motorcycle – my dad didn’t have a car until I was a teenager.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I really love being busy because I am – feel like I am at my best when I am busy.”
― Aisha Tyler
“A lot of people try to control how you access gaming. You know, they’re trying to prevent people from buying games.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I tell jokes, chat with people, and make stuff.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“Marriage is a blood sport. Marriage is jousting. It’s disembowelment. It’s just terrible, terrible visceral injuries. It’s not for everybody.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I wasn’t mentally prepared to take care of them, I was focused on my career. And then when I got to be in my 40s and I thought about having kids, I wasn’t able to have kids naturally. I don’t regret it.”
― Aisha Tyler
“It’s always been the genres that fascinated me. I think great action movies and great thrillers are transformative.”
― Aisha Tyler
“Am I going to complain about being typecast as smart? I don’t think so.”
― Aisha Tyler
“Pursuit of perfection is futile. Instead, I prioritize and often realize goals or tasks I’ve been aiming for just aren’t that important.”
― Aisha Tyler
“When I get old and slow down I want to look behind me and see all the fire and the wreckage and no stone left unturned.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I might not agree with myself in a year.”
― Aisha Tyler
“People challenge my nerd cred all the time. I just show them the photo of me winning my middle-school science fair, wearing my Casio calculator watch and eyeglasses so big they look like they can see the future.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I am absolutely a Giants fan and I’m a Dynasty baby so I was a 49ers fan for a long time.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“My hands are delicate and elegant, thank you very much. They’re well-kept; my nails are clean.”
― Aisha Tyler
“Everybody has those stories that make them wince when they think about them silently. But as soon as you tell that story, it becomes a little bit less cringe-inducing.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I have a whole ‘Halo’ corner in my house. One time, when I went to Bungie, they gave me this awesome ‘Halo: Reach’ backpack. Usually, when you get stuff like that, it either ends up in the garage or going to charity. But I walk around with that ‘Halo: Reach’ backpack all the time, and I drink out of my ‘Halo: Reach’ bottle every day.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“For the record, I’m a clinical workaholic.”
― Aisha Tyler
“In my life and my work, I really try to be just fully myself.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I’m a think gamer with twitch tendencies.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“My goal is definitely to direct features – action movies, that’s my favorite genre. So I would love to do the ‘Halo’ movie.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I’m black, and black don’t crack. It does droop.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I don’t think of myself as a role model, but I do feel like, for women out there who are trying to figure out who they are, the most important choice to make is to live a life that’s true to who you are inside. And let your ideas and your heart and your mind drive your fashion choices.”
― Aisha Tyler
“Not only was I the only black kid and the only poor kid, but my parents were transcendental meditation devotees, and I live in an ashram for a good portion of my childhood.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I’d be plenty happy if I could keep playing scientists and cops for the rest of my career.”
― Aisha Tyler
“My parents were vegetarians. I’d show up at school, this giant black kid, with none of the cool clothes and a tofu sandwich and celery sticks.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“There’s a part of every person that is entertained by the idealistic, the fantastic.”
― Aisha Tyler
“Marriage isn’t a carnival ride.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I was this weird little bookish giant.”
― Aisha Tyler
“Comedy is ugly. It’s honest, it’s raw.”
― Aisha Tyler
“Pop culture hales you and wants you to fail.”
― Aisha Tyler
“On general principle, I boycott shows that don’t employ actors.”
― Aisha Tyler
“Yes, I do get recognized in public. It’s pretty nice.”
― Aisha Tyler
“Pop culture is great, but it can be bad, at times.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I can tell you this: Stand-up is not glamorous.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I’m sure I had low-level scurvy all of my childhood.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I thought I was gonna be an attorney, so I went to Dartmouth and I was a government major and I minored in environmental policy, and I didn’t do anything academically around the arts.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I’m such a geek, and have always been a real nerd.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I really do know football.”
― Aisha Tyler
“You rarely see women being nice to each other on television anymore.”
― Aisha Tyler
“Maybe the nails are a little stubby and gnawed on, but I definitely do not have man hands.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I’m the kindest, most supportive friend ever, probably to my own detriment, but I hope that I am toughening up a little bit.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I like grown up comedy.”
― Aisha Tyler
“You know, I read graphic novels but not encyclopedically.”
― Aisha Tyler
“But I love stand-up, and it’s where I came from creatively, so it’s something I never want to walk away from.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I’m just myself, so I don’t know that I think of myself as a nerd icon.”
― Aisha Tyler
“My husband and I met when I was a teenager, and I’ve been with him for more than half of my adult life.”
― Aisha Tyler
“It’s very hard when you love someone very much to also start to realize that maybe you want different things for your lives.”
― Aisha Tyler
“Marriage is hard. I’m not gonna lie.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.’”
― Aisha Tyler
“The whole principle of coming out is that everyone knows someone who’s gay. The minute someone comes out, no one can be a bigot, because someone they love is gay.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I was with someone at 19, and I was married at 23, and I didn’t want kids when I was in my 20s.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I won’t apologize for choosing my career over kids.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I married my college boyfriend, so I’ve been with him since I was a kid.”
― Aisha Tyler
“Sunday is like this entertainment scrum for me, because I’ve only got a day, one day of fun. So I want to have brunch, and I want to see a movie, and I want to watch ‘Game of Thrones,’ and I’m trying to watch ‘The Sopranos’ from the beginning, and I want to play four hours of video games. So, it’s, like, as regimented as my work life.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I have a lot of good girlfriends that I really love, but you know, most of my close friends are men.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I was always a theatrical kid.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I acted out a lot. I was very nerdy. I was very isolated, which I made up for by kind of talking and trying to entertain people and get them to like me, so I did theatre and improv in high school and college, but always as a hobby.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I’ve always been an outsider.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I’d like to provide an SAT word in everything I do.”
― Aisha Tyler
“If you look at shows like ‘Def Comedy Jam’ in its heyday, there were so many really funny, talented black comics that never would have gotten on that show because they just weren’t doing comedy that fit that mold.”
― Aisha Tyler
“The only way I was going to be funny was if I was myself, and either you liked it, or you didn’t. Either you got on my train, or you didn’t. Freeing myself of this idea that I had to fit a certain mold was when I was able to be my funniest.”
― Aisha Tyler
“One of the first movies my dad took me to see was the original ‘Road Warrior.’ And I was kind of raised on the action movies of that era: ‘The Terminator’ and ‘Die Hard’ and, of course, all of the ‘Star Wars’ movies.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I remember leaving the first ‘Matrix’ movie feeling completely radicalized, completely changed. I think we all, from our ordinary lives, like to think about putting ourselves into these extraordinary situations and wonder how we’d respond.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“Chris Parnell’s a genius, so he’d be amazing on ‘Who’s Line.’”
― Aisha Tyler
“I’m surrounded by geniuses, which is really not good for my own personal self-esteem!”
― Aisha Tyler
“Dartmouth represented a great opportunity. I wanted to go to the best possible school I could go to.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“Every culture is very important. Dartmouth has always been dedicated to diversity of culture.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I am constantly re-evaluating my goals and trying to strike items from my to-do list that aren’t critical.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“God, I mean I had so many people tell me, ‘What you’re doing doesn’t work.’ I used to have to get on stage and apologize for talking the way that I speak.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“If you have an embarrassing story, and it’s a source of shame, keeping it in just compounds the shame and turns the story into something poisonous. And if someone knows about it, then it can be used against you.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I love New Orleans. I did a movie there right before Katrina.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I can’t say that there’s been some big change during my career where all of a sudden everything’s totally colorblind.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I try to do more intelligent roles, unusual roles, and stronger women, and that’s helped me a little bit with my casting opportunities.”
― Aisha Tyler
“After 40, your chances of getting pregnant are between two and eight percent, and in my particular case, they were less than five percent.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I am black, and there’s no getting around that, but being black doesn’t define every aspect of my life.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“Marriage is a mystery, and part of it is just being kind to each other, not being selfish.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I believe in hard work. I think that everything flows out of that.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I hated, when I was a kid, being told that ‘Black people don’t do that.’ And the white kids at school didn’t accept me because I was black, and the black kids in my neighborhood didn’t accept me because they thought I thought I was white.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.’”
― Aisha Tyler
“For a little while, my mom was a school teacher. And I went to the school that she taught.”
― Aisha Tyler
“My dad, he was a construction worker. He was a butcher. He was a deep sea fisherman.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I used to worry that if I wasn’t having a dynamic life, then I wouldn’t have anything to talk about.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I think art comes out of meaningful experiences, and it’s hard to make art when your meaningful experience is getting into your electric car and driving from your fancy house in the Hills to your fancy job in the Valley.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“Once we decided not to get pregnant, I snapped back into work mode, and now I have just been really enjoying my career.”
― Aisha Tyler
“There’s a clock ticking on the pregnancy thing, but not a clock ticking on adoption.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I believe that the essence of marriage is choosing someone who loves you for who you are, embraces everything about you, and building a life with that person. Whether that life is with children or without children – it’s honestly immaterial to building a life with someone that you love fully.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I was raised by a single dad, and I’ve always kind of liked things that are typically more guy-oriented.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I think people sleepwalk through their lives, and for me, I wanted to embrace everything. And that meant the agonizing pain and the transcendence, and you can’t have one without the other.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I have this insane and unabated longing for San Francisco. I come up there every chance that I get.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I’ve been blessed to have insanely hip parents who think of me as their little Chris Rock.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.’”
― Aisha Tyler
“I love fashion, and I love how it makes me feel, but it doesn’t rule my life.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I really try to make smart choices about my fashion and really live a life on the carpet that’s the same as the life I live normally.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“It’s a thrill to star with such great actors like Kevin Bacon, Kelly Preston, and Garrett Hedlund.”
― Aisha Tyler
“The City gets more and more beautiful every time I come home.”
― Aisha Tyler
“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.”
― Aisha Tyler
“I really only play shooters, which is a nice way to restrict the amount of gameplay in the house.”
― Aisha Tyler
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