Wyatt Cenac Quotes

For me, in trying to talk about something like policing, it's such a huge issue, and it's an issue that's very local and very personalized to communities, to cities, to legislators, and so, in that way, I think as we started looking into talking about policing, the thing that you realize is that you can't paint everything with the same brush.

- Wyatt Cenac

When I used to put videos on MySpace, there'd always be someone posting something nasty. To those people, I'd send friend requests, and invariably, they accepted them.

- Wyatt Cenac

For me, when I think of curiosity on television, a lot of times my childhood was shaped by shows on PBS that encouraged and embraced curiosity.

- Wyatt Cenac

Monsters aren't as scary if you start shining lights on them.

- Wyatt Cenac

I think hard work is definitely a huge thing, but there is something, if you want to call it luck or whatever - a window of opportunity - that is totally outside of your control, and it's that thing that will sometimes separate a good career from a great career.

- Wyatt Cenac

There's so many shows, whether it's 'Last Week Tonight' or 'The Daily Show' or 'Full Frontal' or 'Late Night With Seth Meyers,' that are really doing great stuff talking about what's going on in the world and what's going on with the president, and those stories that everyone winds up talking about, whether on social media or in their jobs.

- Wyatt Cenac

Sometimes I feel I'm being animated, but it comes off differently. Unfortunately, I was cursed with these sleepy eyes.

- Wyatt Cenac

I don't do enough movies that I can call it a career. It really is sort of like summer jobs or something like that. It's very much like holiday work as far as, okay, I do it, and I'm there for two weeks and hopefully am working really hard, and then it's done, and I kind of go back to what I was doing before.

- Wyatt Cenac

I think, with any topical show, it's very easy to find yourself caught up in the news cycle, and working at 'The Daily Show,' I definitely found myself in that, where we would be talking about the last 24 hours.

- Wyatt Cenac

If you have a car, you tune it up; you replace the parts. You try to keep it in good shape. This country has tires that are shot, a bunch of engine problems, and rather than saying, 'Okay, let's maybe put some new parts in here,' we just keep putting gas in and driving forward.

- Wyatt Cenac

Everyone gets very excited about the idea of space travel, but... it's not going to be everybody that gets to go.

- Wyatt Cenac

Chris Nolan can put Batman in full body armor, have him drive a car that looks likes a tank, and make him political, and everyone says, 'Oh, that's OK.' But try making him Filipino, and everyone gets mad.

- Wyatt Cenac

I did a movie a few years back, 'Medicine for Melancholy.' People will come up to me after a set and say, 'I really love that movie. When are you going to do another one?' Or 'I loved you on 'The Daily Show.' Why did you leave?' It's kind of the same as saying, 'I loved you in high school. You should have never left.'

- Wyatt Cenac

Every impression that I do is just a terrible variation on an awful Bill Cosby impression. You're doing an Australian accent, but it's just Australian Bill Cosby; or that's just British Bill Cosby; that's Pirate Bill Cosby.

- Wyatt Cenac

There are plenty of people I've seen and thought that person is funny, or that person is really talented, and they've got something, but maybe the buying public doesn't see the same thing I see, or the stars don't align in the right way for them.

- Wyatt Cenac

When I was in college, I walked by the journalism school every day on my way to my own classes, and that's the closest I've come to having any sort of journalism background.

- Wyatt Cenac

When I worked on 'The Daily Show,' we had some puppets made of myself, John Oliver, and Jon Stewart. When I left the show, I stole the puppet. I took what was rightfully mine.

- Wyatt Cenac

I wrote this 12-page 'Luke Cage' comic book for Marvel once, and I got to create a villain. His name was Lone Shark, so there was this running thing of whether it was spelled L-O-A-N or L-O-N-E. I like the idea of 'I'm a lone shark,' and then people are like, 'You are here to collect a debt?'

- Wyatt Cenac

When I'm on the road, museums end up being a place I go to in different cities that is always interesting. Museums and independent record stores.

- Wyatt Cenac

There are 18,000 police agencies in this country. There's no network requiring them to operate according to the same guidelines.

- Wyatt Cenac

If you wanna be the comic relief in a big-budget movie, go to L.A. because there are five auditions in a week that you could hit up, and that increases your chances of getting those jobs.

- Wyatt Cenac

I enjoy doing standup, but when I'm 50, I don't know if I'll still enjoy doing standup. It might be one of those things where I find other palettes that I want to paint on and make comedic.

- Wyatt Cenac

I enjoy 'Life Aquatic.' I think that one, from a visual standpoint, is just such a fun, visual movie to look at, whether it's the shots of the ship cut down the middle, that set where you can see everyone in each of their rooms doing whatever and moving about - something like that, I could watch that on a loop for an hour.

- Wyatt Cenac

There are certain things that you can blast through a stereo. You can blast hip-hop. You can blast heavy metal. You can't blast 'All Things Considered.'

- Wyatt Cenac

I think when you write something as standup material, it forces you to think about how you're gonna tell that story in one way, and then, when you get the opportunity to shoot it, you almost have to reframe how you go about it and rethink the entire process.

- Wyatt Cenac

I have worked in animation on 'King of the Hill.' I've worked in late-night with 'The Daily Show.' I've worked on single-camera stuff, whether it was a movie or television. I have performed onstage.

- Wyatt Cenac

I remember Tim Meadows gave me a radio. It was a radio he didn't want anymore. I gave it to my grandmother, and she had it 'til the day she died. To me, it was, 'I got a thing from Tim Meadows!' I think my grandmother was like, 'I got a thing from my grandson!'

- Wyatt Cenac

So much about getting onstage is creating a connection with an audience that allows you to go different places and try different things.

- Wyatt Cenac

It's a very short walk to go from making jokes to getting on a soapbox and going on a diatribe.

- Wyatt Cenac

I make jokes. That's what I do.

- Wyatt Cenac

I know for myself, every now and again on HBO, they'll show some of the young comedian specials from the '80s and early '90s, and it's just fascinating to watch those comedians - some of whom are people that are world-famous, like Chris Rock or Judd Apatow - to see the jokes that people had, but also, the way everything looked.

- Wyatt Cenac

Steven Wright can do Steven Wright very well. Not everyone can do Steven Wright's jokes with the same results.

- Wyatt Cenac

A lot of the things I do deal with my race, but my race is who I am. I'm an American kid who grew up listening to predominantly hip-hop. I will talk about hip-hop as the music I grew up listening to, and I think sometimes people like to put it as, 'Oh, well, he's talking about black things.' And, yeah, they are, but that's my American identity.

- Wyatt Cenac

I represent my community, and I represent my people. And I've got to be honest if something seems questionable.

- Wyatt Cenac

I probably learned more about Marion Barry listening to Chris Rock than I did reading a headline.

- Wyatt Cenac

Policing of the disabled and how many deaf people get shot by cops is sort of insane. And it's not talked about.

- Wyatt Cenac

I am not looking at my TV show to change the world.

- Wyatt Cenac

It's interesting to go places and see that, at the end of the day, people just want to feel safe, and what that looks like to them varies... but that was encouraging to see that there is more common ground than perhaps I realized.

- Wyatt Cenac

What's sad is that we can have a reality-television performer for president without incorporating the other aspects of reality television - like voting and voter engagement.

- Wyatt Cenac

As long as you walk away from any experience, good or bad, with lessons and things you can take into the next experience, I don't think you can do anything but look back on it with an appreciation.

- Wyatt Cenac

I feel like you can't trust a cat. I feel like a cat's got an ulterior motive. The moment you show any weakness to a cat, the cat is gonna take over.

- Wyatt Cenac

Kanye is a student of art. He's an art-school-dropout type of kid that will talk about art till the cows come home.

- Wyatt Cenac

When I came up in L.A., a lot of comics produced their own shows, and so if you wanted to have a show in the city, you produced it yourself.

- Wyatt Cenac

I went to an all-boys Catholic school in Dallas.

- Wyatt Cenac

I always found myself feeling that happiness rises and frustration trickles down. If the people at the top are frustrated, then everybody down the line feels that. But if the people at the bottom are happy and fulfilled, then they do their jobs a little better, and it goes up that way.

- Wyatt Cenac

What's nice about a lot of Wes Anderson's films is that there's a patience to it. I think that patience brings out a lot more funny things that you would miss otherwise if you just had to make quick cuts and keep the pace, whatever that pace is that bigger budget comedies have to have.

- Wyatt Cenac

When I was a kid, I loved really loud things. My grandmother and I went to the Fulton Mall, and I bought a three-piece suit that was paisley. Paisley over the whole suit. I was 6 and thought it was great. My mother took a photo of me in it, sent it to my grandmother, and burned the suit.

- Wyatt Cenac

The majority of the DC and Marvel comic lines are white male characters, and the minute you make Thor a woman or Captain America a black guy, the Internet is filled with hateful comments and people saying, 'That's not what Captain America is supposed to look like.'

- Wyatt Cenac

Watching something is a personal experience, and I think watching something that is dealing with a heavy subject matter, it's a personal thing.

- Wyatt Cenac

Flights are a good way to catch up on podcasts, but I'll listen to some jazz to fall asleep.

- Wyatt Cenac

I feel like I've seen a lot of talented people, and some have gone on to great things, and some have gone on to successful careers and done alright but without great amounts of fame and recognition.

- Wyatt Cenac

I can't be manic without it feeling false to me.

- Wyatt Cenac

There aren't a lot of roles for sleepy-eyed black dudes.

- Wyatt Cenac

At 'The Daily Show,' we were satirizing a news program. You put somebody in a suit, you put 'em behind a desk, and they become an authority figure.

- Wyatt Cenac

One of the things that I was kind of holding on to from 'The Daily Show' was there was an exhaustion that I would feel because we just kind of got caught up in the news cycle. You tell a story, and that's an interesting story, and then the next day we have to drop it and talk about something else. That's so unfair to the story and the people.

- Wyatt Cenac

After I left the 'Daily Show,' I was kind of sitting out for five years. I know what it's like to not be able to have that platform for my voice the way I want it.

- Wyatt Cenac

I do love TV as a medium.

- Wyatt Cenac

I wouldn't consider myself a traditional sitcom actor or someone you'd even think would be in a sitcom.

- Wyatt Cenac

There's always a certain concern whenever you go and shoot a field piece: that maybe all the elements won't come together, knowing that you have limited time to tell a story, hoping that you get all the elements you need, hoping the subjects are comfortable.

- Wyatt Cenac

The thing that I'm known for - at least, depending on what Subreddit you go to - is being a comedian. And so, even when talking about heavy things, I still want to try to use humor to walk us in the door.

- Wyatt Cenac

The role of a comedian is to go in and make something funny. That might be a situation where I'm writing, a situation where I'm in control, like standup or something of my own that I'm making, or it might be something like being an actor in someone else's project.

- Wyatt Cenac

I feel like I've always thought of myself as a comedian.

- Wyatt Cenac

When you put comedy in the room it's supposed to be in, you start learning it's a process. Not everything is a home run. You have singles, and you ground a few out. But ultimately, it's the journey you have with that comedian, whether it's ten minutes or an hour.

- Wyatt Cenac

For me, funny is funny, and what's unfortunate is these comedians aren't being allowed to operate in rooms for everybody and that everybody can laugh and say, 'Okay, I find that person funny, and I don't just have to find them funny because they look like me.'

- Wyatt Cenac

When we simply write a place off as, like, 'Well, it's just Trump country,' for the people who are there, we do them a disservice on some level. It's their country, too.

- Wyatt Cenac

Getting a Grammy nomination for 'Brooklyn' meant a lot, especially because, as an album, it was one that was very personal to me but also one that I self-produced and had gone outside the label.

- Wyatt Cenac

There are things that are only palatable until they become uncomfortable for us, so it's very easy to complain about some problem the minute it becomes a problem for you. But you're okay with certain aspects of gentrification if they're the aspects you like.

- Wyatt Cenac

I was arrested when I was 19 for inciting a riot.

- Wyatt Cenac

Whenever I've done jobs, whether it's an acting job or writing job, there's an aspect of it that feels like you help build your piece of it, and then you watch as someone takes it, and they finish building it.

- Wyatt Cenac

I think, with these shows, with 'Last Week Tonight,' with 'Full Frontal,' I think, as these shows have evolved, we all have research departments now.

- Wyatt Cenac

I do love Instagram, but even if I spend 15 minutes looking at stuff, I feel guilty.

- Wyatt Cenac

We all live with contradictions.

- Wyatt Cenac

I kinda feel like if I can do what I like in New York - and I like New York, I was born in New York, I have a lot more of a connection to New York - the hope is to stay in New York.

- Wyatt Cenac

Everybody has a stake in the story of policing.

- Wyatt Cenac

I spent a lot of time in Brooklyn as a kid. I was born in New York, and my grandmother lived in Crown Heights, so there's a part of it that I feel this connection to.

- Wyatt Cenac

I think, a lot of times when you do a comedy show, people will turn out for a name they know. So, they get excited when they see Patton Oswalt is going to be on the show, but they kind of cross their arms until Patton Oswalt shows up.

- Wyatt Cenac

I feel like you could watch 'Grand Budapest' without sound, and it would still be funny.

- Wyatt Cenac

Women deal with real issues with policing that don't really get talked about.

- Wyatt Cenac

There's more we can do as a community to try to change what policing looks like in our cities.

- Wyatt Cenac

I've had shows where, afterwards, people have commented or hoped I would talk more about something in politics or that I would make a joke about Mitch McConnell or something like that.

- Wyatt Cenac

I think there's a lesson in everything.

- Wyatt Cenac

I wrote for 'King of the Hill' for three seasons.

- Wyatt Cenac