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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.