Keegan-Michael Key Quotes

We[with Jordan Peele] wanted to do something with [Barack] Obama because we actually felt that Obama was kind of responsible for us even getting a show in the first place because there's this biracial person who might, you know, have to ride the divide between two different races.

If you take something like the slave-auction sketch, the warmth of the light gives it a crisp 12 Years a Slave look. And your eye tells your brain, "I should be taking this seriously."

We've decided [with Jordan Peele] that we need to be on the Internet for a little bit of time every day to figure out what's going on. It feels like we're working. It feels like you're all typing and you're searching.

I get overwhelmed when I approach things intellectually.

Everybody puts on airs, regardless of race.

Surprise is not humor. I think that there can be a fine line there.

I think the reason I went into theater, ultimately, was because that was one of multicultural groups. Because you identify with other people that share similar passions to you, so it didn't matter how much melanin was in their skin.

You can not have comedy unless people are behaving badly. You can't have it.

When you say to somebody, "I'd like to recommend a book to you," you're typically talking to a person who is willing to learn, grow, or change.

My adoptive mother tirelessly worked most of her life to build up my self-esteem. So what happened was finding her started to shed light and destroy my mythos. So for the first year of knowing her, my mom kind of actually literally visited me in Detroit and kind of gave me a tour of my life - where I was conceived, where I was born, where she found out she was pregnant. It was amazing, Terry, and very emotional.

I have this little thing that people call Keegan-ese, where I don't speak English words at all. I just say stuff like, "You gotta toish the doish and you gotta maloish the hoish."

There's a sketch where we're playing two terrorists in a cave, and my terrorist is very frustrated as to why we haven't flown a plane into a building in 13 years.

The fact of the matter is, you can't do comedy unless someone is behaving badly. Otherwise, it's not a comedy.

If I could just get over my issues of wanting people to like me.

The audience loves to figure things out. They love it when a performer leaves a trail of bread crumbs for them, and they get to participate in the comedy.

There is no top. You are never going to reach the top if you go for success. That way lies madness.

I want people to say, "Oh my God, I'm laughing out loud at television."

I'm adopted, so I didn't know my father, but apparently he was pretty tall.

[Adoption] could turn you into an exquisite comedian. Ask Richard Pryor's ghost.

Being a melting pot is what I think is great about being American, and also that we get to do something that other people don't get to do, we get to be a hyphenate. That's a good thing.

My father has passed away. He was African-American. My mother is white. So I was adopted by a couple that was of a similar dynamic as my biological parents.

Do what you love in your community.

I grew up watching British television because I lived so close to Canada.

I'm very concerned with what's going on the news, but I would not call myself a political animal, per se. I pay more attention during election years, or if I see some topic or issue that I care about. But I would never call myself a political animal or political junkie.

I'm tall and thin but not strong, so you're either an athlete or you're funny.

You hold precious what you create for yourself in your life that makes you comfortable.

It was very important thousands of years ago to categorize things. I can eat that plant, I can't eat that plant. Or this tribe, not that tribe. We don't have to do that anymore - we have processed food now!

Ricky Gervais changed our lives. And Mitch Hedberg, who we're like, "Oh, that's funny to me on a level I don't think I understand. But I'm clearly pleased by it beyond something that my brain's figured out." He was amazing.

Like every human we have to categorize ourselves, so you kind of start to build a mythos 'cause I had no information about [ biological mother]. So you have to build a mythos around yourself. And so my mythos included me not being wanted or me being a wretched person, which is just great fertilizer for comedy.

One time I said to Jordan [Peele], in a text, "I will pick you up at 2:30. So if you're just standing out in front of the building, we'll go from there to the next meeting. Cool?" And my man just writes, "Wordness to the turdness."

We share plates [with Jordan Peele], and we also very often will sit in the corner and kind of speak in our own language.

A poet can feel free, in my estimation, to write a poem for himself. Or a painter can paint a painting for himself. You can write a short story for yourself. But for me, comedy by its nature is communal. If other people don't get it, I'm not sure why you are doing it.

You could figure out at least 80 percent of the context and meaning of a text if people used punctuation, and we wouldn't have had to write our sketch.

We've caught people watching us, and I'll look at them and I'll go, "It's just us. It's just our thing. It's just what we do."

[The rumor that Leonardo DiCaprio on set was raped by a bear] was as silly as Lady Gaga bumping him or moving his arm out of the way [at the Golden Globes]. People straight be bored.

For me, as a child, I certainly thought that there were more black people in the world than white people.

There's a thing called the 'One Drop' theory in African-American culture, which is if you have one drop of black blood in you, you're black.

To make an absolutely gross generalization, I think a lot of people feel like if you're mixed, more often than not you're quote unquote white. So if you're mixed, you embrace the mainstream culture more than the African-American culture.

My favorite, favorite, favorite, and the greatest comedian that could ever exist if you could Frankenstein a comedian together, would be one part Richard Pryor, one part Peter Sellers. That would be the greatest comic actor.

When you're a child, the most important thing is to be able to live a life of comfort. You want to be sure that the moon goes up at night and the sun comes up in the morning and dad comes home from work.

I'm racist against non-black people.

I have always, or for the most part, identified myself as a biracial person.

I have always, or for the most part, identified myself as a biracial person. Much to the chagrin of a lot of African-American people that I meet, because it's almost like there's a betrayal, an intrinsic betrayal: "Don't do that, brotha, we need you. We need you here, in this fold."

If you look at any successful skit comedy show, ever, there is that format of introducing you to the player in the beginning, and then going on to see those sketches.