“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.”
― Ali Wong
“I really loved being pregnant, especially because people treat you so nice.”
― Ali Wong
“With my husband, I do really appreciate the fact that we – even though we’re different kinds of Asian, there is a cultural shorthand between us, and I don’t have to explain anything. I’ve dated guys before who weren’t Asian-American, and it frustrated me when I would have to defend why beans belong in a dessert.”
― Ali Wong
“To be a trophy wife, you have to be a trophy. I am more of a commemorative plaque.”
― Ali Wong
“When you’re a mom, you need sparkle to compensate for the light inside of you that has died.”
― Ali Wong
“I’ll tell you how I balance family and career. I have a nanny.”
― Ali Wong
“I think feminism is the worst thing that ever happened to women. Our job used to be no job. We had it so good!”
― Ali Wong
“My husband and I went to Japan for our honeymoon, and you look at, like, the presentation of the food, and it’s ridiculous. It looks like a Mondrian painting or something. Everything looks like a bunch of little Hello Kitty erasers when you eat a little bento box in Japan. It’s so precise and beautiful and processed and neat.”
― Ali Wong
“Having a two-year-old is very hard. I feel like I’m in a relationship with an emotionally unstable woman who is also physically abusive and never gets in trouble for it.”
― Ali Wong
“I liked that improv and sketch comedy were collaborative, but you really depended on other people and a stage to perform. With stand-up comedy, I liked that you had no one else to blame and depend on.”
― Ali Wong
“I constantly peed in my pants up until the 8th grade and wore an extra-large sailor uniform from kindergarten to 8th grade because my mom was scared I’d grow out of it. So I learned to make fun of myself at school and summer camp.”
― Ali Wong
“I have this fantasy of relaxing and doing nothing. But I’m obviously very passionate about stand-up comedy. I mean, I keep doing it. So I must be really into it.”
― Ali Wong
“I think I went through puberty really late in life or something. I always looked like a little, sad Thai boy up until I was 26.”
― Ali Wong
“There’s something I want to say, and I haven’t been able to articulate it yet, about how it’s so rude when people don’t admit that they have a nanny.”
― Ali Wong
“I love being a mom and having two kids. But I’ve had two C-sections, and I have suffered enough. That’s my favourite mantra when it comes to motherhood.”
― Ali Wong
“The biggest downside of L.A. is the traffic and parking tickets. They turn me into Michael Douglas in ‘Falling Down.’”
― Ali Wong
“Breastfeeding is this savage ritual that just reminds you that your body is a cafeteria now.”
― Ali Wong
“Stand-up is no bureaucracy. No one can tell me what to do or not to do.”
― Ali Wong
“The more socially conscious you are, the better the work you make.”
― Ali Wong
“Nothing is off-limits. There’s just some things I cannot crack. Politics I can’t do. When I start to talk about it, I just get really angry and super sincere. I have never found a way to craft all of that absurdity into funny.”
― Ali Wong
“Food is a huge source of comfort for me.”
― Ali Wong
“People obsess about casting and representation, but really, all the real work is behind the camera. Casting an Asian American into a bad role where they’re shoehorned into these stereotypes is worse than not having cast them at all.”
― Ali Wong
“When you’re pregnant, you’re all gassy, and you’re hungry, but then you’re nauseous.”
― Ali Wong
“Before my dad passed away, I would miss a lot of baby showers and weddings, sacrificed a lot of family and friend events for dumb road dates. I don’t do that anymore. It’s gone in the other direction. I’m more inclined to put family and friends first.”
― Ali Wong
“Comedy has so much to do with honesty, and women can be more open about their emotions.”
― Ali Wong
“Just because you become a parent doesn’t mean you grew up.”
― Ali Wong
“The most valuable thing my dad taught me was to never care about what other people thought. When he came to my shows, and I’d announce his presence, he’d stand up with his hands clasped in victory and cheer my name.”
― Ali Wong
“In Hue, Vietnam, we had savory rice pancakes with crumbled shrimp and pork rinds. I’ve still never had a version as good.”
― Ali Wong
“My parents emphasized experiential learning – in my family, being adventurous was a sign of maturity.”
― Ali Wong
“If you want me to perform in Silver Lake – where it looks like ‘Vice’ magazine threw up everywhere, where all the men are wearing V-necks to their belly buttons, salmon pants, and carrying a screenplay – I’ll do it, because they might appreciate a Banksy joke I can’t do anywhere else.”
― Ali Wong
“Stand-up comedy is something that you have to strive to do, multiple times a night, every night, to be good.”
― Ali Wong
“A lot of women do stand-up as a gateway into acting, but I love stand-up, and to be a good stand-up, you have to go on the road a lot. It means going to places in America where they’ve never seen a Vietnamese person in their life.”
― Ali Wong
“It’s unfair to the hard-core stay-at-home moms to pretend you’re able to have an amazing body by chasing around your kids.”
― Ali Wong
“I think one of the hardest things to talk about as a comic is having money because it’s so unrelatable.”
― Ali Wong
“I’m always asked how my husband is feeling about my success with a note of concern. He feels great. It’s not hard to feel good about your spouse making money.”
― Ali Wong
“Women, a lot of the time, are so much funnier than men, but they just choose not to do comedy for a living.”
― Ali Wong
“The life of a true, traditional stand-up is really unappealing for women.”
― Ali Wong
“My dad was a doctor, and he would tell us a lot of nasty, funny stories from the hospital. It was funny to me when I’d go over to other people’s houses and they didn’t talk about intestines at the table.”
― Ali Wong
“I’m addicted to picking my nose. In a world of red tape and bureaucracy, where it takes forever to buy a house or get a cell-phone plan going, it’s so instant to just stick your finger up there and go for something your own body produces.”
― Ali Wong
“People are always very surprised by how, offstage with my husband, I’m a completely different person… very soft and nurturing.”
― Ali Wong
“You know what male comics can’t do? They can’t get pregnant. They can’t perform pregnant. So my attitude is, just use all those differences.”
― Ali Wong
“A couple of female standup comics I know refer to their kids as their Little Career Killers. I was like, I really do not want to feel that way.”
― Ali Wong
“It’s very rare and unusual to see a female comic perform pregnant.”
― Ali Wong
“Even now, when I go out people are like, ‘What are you doing here? Didn’t you just have a baby?’ But people never ask a male comic when he’s out a week later, like, ‘Oh my God, you’re so irresponsible! What are you doing out? Who is taking care of the baby?’”
― Ali Wong
“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.”
― Ali Wong
“Writing is the life blood of everything in Hollywood. Without writers, there are no scripts, no acting work.”
― Ali Wong
“My dad was obviously a really quirky, unconventional Asian man who didn’t care about what other people thought. When he would fight with my mom, he would be really dramatic. He would be like, ‘Devil, get away, for I am God’s property.’ He would say crazy things that were so melodramatic but so theatrical and funny.”
― Ali Wong
“My husband’s chill.”
― Ali Wong
“I’m discovering, and I think other mums are discovering too, that when you become a mum, you don’t have to change into this frumpy, wholesome role model who is perfect and loses all of your identity. You can still have the same personality you’ve always had.”
― Ali Wong
“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.”
― Ali Wong
“There’s a scene in ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ where this guy dances with a giant doll while singing ‘Make ‘Em Laugh.’ I remember loving the pure physicality of it.”
― Ali Wong
“It’s very rare that stand-up comics have kids, because once they do, they stop doing stand-up.”
― Ali Wong
“I want to be like a Wendy Murdoch or a Georgina Chapman.”
― Ali Wong
“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.”
― Ali Wong
“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.”
― Ali Wong
“I was so boisterous in high-school, I don’t think a lot of boys liked me that much ’cause they were like, ‘Oh, she’s so loud and so crazy.’ But then this thing happens in your late twenties, and guys begin to take note of women’s personalities more or something.”
― Ali Wong
“Making people laugh was the only thing I ever truly excelled at. But at home, I was so quiet with my family, which taught me to be really observant.”
― Ali Wong
“Stand-up will always be my favorite and the most important thing that I do. I view everything else as free money.”
― Ali Wong
“You can’t just be crass without being witty. Angry crass is horrible.”
― Ali Wong
“I think that’s one of the reasons women don’t tell people when they’ve had a miscarriage – they think it’s their fault.”
― Ali Wong
“Aside from Joan Rivers and Roseanne, it’s hard for me to think of any female comedian who’s had kids and has a serious level of fame – like, the level where your mother has heard of them.”
― Ali Wong
“You become like a vampire when you’re pregnant: your senses are so sensitive, and your emotions are so heightened – that helps with performance because you really feel things.”
― Ali Wong
“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.”
― Ali Wong
“There are certainly other female comics who are moms, but I don’t know any who are actively touring with their kids. But there are more and more becoming moms, and it’s awesome. I feel we’re in a super sisterhood.”
― Ali Wong
“The audience is so important. Because there’s something that I might think is super funny, but if it’s just not getting the feedback, I have to let it go.”
― Ali Wong
“Every male comedian of note who is over the age of 45 has a kid, and they talk about it and don’t get grouped as ‘dad comics.’”
― Ali Wong
“That’s the difference between a great comic and a bad comic – one has great instincts and has a lot of compassion and can feel what’s right and what’s wrong.”
― Ali Wong
“Asian men are the sexiest. They got no body hair from the neck down.”
― Ali Wong
“I think Asian men are beautiful.”
― Ali Wong
“Breast-feeding was so stressful for me. I kept on clenching and pushing my tongue against the bottom teeth, so they started to move toward an underbite.”
― Ali Wong
“A lot of people like to ask me, ‘Ali, how on earth do you balance family and career?’ Men never get asked that question. Because they don’t.”
― Ali Wong
“I want to write my daughter something about how much I love her and what I would want to say to her before I die.”
― Ali Wong
“When you have a child, you think about your own mortality.”
― Ali Wong
“I would love to dress like Beyonce: some custom-print, neoprene onesie with no pants.”
― Ali Wong
“I think most feminists are very smart.”
― Ali Wong
“I didn’t expect to be so comfortable handing my child off to a nanny without getting any of her information. As soon as she arrived at my house, I threw my baby in her arms and went to Target.”
― Ali Wong
“I have a B.A. from UCLA. In ethnic studies.”
― Ali Wong
“I have a hoarding problem because my mom is from a third-world country. And she taught me that you can never throw away anything because you never know when a dictator is going to overtake the country and snatch all of your wealth.”
― Ali Wong
“Some useful advice for all of my Asian-American brothers and sisters – never go paint-balling with a Vietnam veteran.”
― Ali Wong
“All I ever wanted to do was tell jokes for a living.”
― Ali Wong
“For the first year I lived in New York, I never ate out. I literally just ate lentils and brown rice at home. Sometimes I’d treat myself to this half chicken from Chinatown that cost $3.50.”
― Ali Wong
“In order to be the best comic, you have to perform in a wide diversity of rooms.”
― Ali Wong
“The concept of ‘diversity’ was this big moral ‘should.’ And now with the success of shows like ‘Fresh Off the Boat,’ ‘Empire,’ ‘Blackish,’ and ‘Jane the Virgin,’ it’s become this big business ‘must,’ which is so great.”
― Ali Wong
“I’ve seen many female comics that a lot of people haven’t heard of who are so funny, and I saw them come up, and they were working so hard, and then all of a sudden they had a baby, and they just got tied up in motherhood, and eventually, they kind of just stopped doing stand-up, and I thought it was such a shame.”
― Ali Wong
“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.”
― Ali Wong
“Maternity leave is for women to hide and heal their disintegrating body.”
― Ali Wong
“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.’”
― Ali Wong
“I don’t want to be that famous.”
― Ali Wong
“Every comic is taught that you’re supposed to have a great seven-minute set and then get a sitcom. And I don’t want to get the sitcom.”
― Ali Wong
“A lot of people get into stand-up as a back door into acting or something. But I really like writing jokes and telling jokes.”
― Ali Wong
“My dad grew up with straight-up no running water. He slept in a twin bed with his two sisters and his mom, like ‘Charlie And The Chocolate Factory’ style: like, feet at the head, feet at the head alternating. And then I think his dad slept on, like, a bed of newspapers on a floor in their apartment.”
― Ali Wong
“My goal is really to just make people laugh with integrity, like, with something that I still find funny.”
― Ali Wong
“At the end of the day, I’m not really trying to make a statement with any of my standup.”
― Ali Wong
“It’s really strange being in, like, Addison,Texas, and having people come up to me at a Nordstrom’s or a gas station. It’s really, really surreal.”
― Ali Wong
“I always really loved comedy. It’s the only thing I was ever good at.”
― Ali Wong
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