I want to tell you about a woman I have been married to for ten years, my wife, Ann, who speaking truthfully, saved me from myself. Who saved me from destroying myself because of my background. Who saved me from wasting my life, drinking my life away, never fulfilling my dreams because of what I had come from, and truly believing and loving - truly the first person to ever truthfully, unconditionally love me.

By the time I was 11, I wanted to be a comedian. So all those years later, I've managed to achieve my dream as a kid, and it wasn't easy. I'm on the [Hollywood] Walk of Fame and I'm one of the 25 most influential Hispanics in America, according to Time Magazine. I think my duty is to go back and tell kids, 'Whatever color you are, wherever you come from, anything and everything is possible.' And I'm living proof.

If you read social media, you can see how immigration is such a hot-button debate and [a hotbed] of ignorance. You know there's guys that say immigrants come here, and they create so much crime and they take jobs. There's multiple sides to every story.

Shows should just be able to be shows without hyphenating their lead characters.

If the worst thing that can happen is that nobody laughs, then I can deal with that, because the worst thing that can happen at the factory is that I could lose a limb or be crushed by a huge machine.

A Dodger uniform just doesn't look good with a cummerbund.

It was June 4, 1979, the first time I went on stage. I didn't know I could do it but I knew I couldn't not do it. I quit everything in my life and this was the one thing I couldn't quit.