It makes it very hard to say what you believe in and not be attacked for it. And it's not fair; I'm Korean, but I'm not supposed to talk about my experience and my life? It's unaccepting.
Margaret ChoIf you really care about children then why would you want to keep families from adopting them?
Margaret ChoWhy can't all different types of women be considered beautiful? Why can't we can't we all be considered possible love interests?
Margaret ChoIf you're a songwriter, you want to write a song like "Oh Yeah" that radically shifts everything. You can definitely retire on that song. You want to have something you can put in your songbook that everybody can recognize, whether it's a good or bad thing.
Margaret ChoThere's this idea like feminism is humorless and humorless in a way that's like a whistleblower. Like you're going to - you're going to make sure that nobody has any fun. And that's not true at all. I think feminism allows me to do what I do, and I'm so grateful to the idea of it and grateful to all the women that came before.
Margaret ChoThat's the nature of comedy. You always want to be improving and growing and changing with what's happening in the world. That's when comedy is most effective.
Margaret ChoI really love Steve Martin and all the stuff he did in the '70s. I think it's really great.
Margaret ChoWhen I do an Asian character or an Asian voice I'm doing one because that's my heritage and my family and where I come from. My family is of Korean descent and specifically North Korean descent. So it makes sense for me to talk about that issue because it's the only weapon I have to somehow avenge my family and my history.
Margaret ChoI'm a huge fan of the people and things that are considered the epitomes of tastelessness - things like drag and raunchy comedy.
Margaret ChoChrist's purpose was to really show how everyone can be loved and how everyone should be loved and accepted.
Margaret ChoMy parents never really had that much money, so I kind of live in the same world that they do.
Margaret ChoI'm lucky that I have good genetics. Like you said, it just gets better as I get older.
Margaret ChoThat it is not the people who really feel that way, but it is people who have the most money to fire up these propaganda campaigns, these like, basically these lies that they are willing to lie to the public in order to manipulate them into doing what they want. And to me it doesn't make any sense.
Margaret ChoMaybe I wanted to hear it so badly that my ears betrayed my mind in order to secure my heart.
Margaret ChoLet's not hate ourselves. We are all we have. We cannot change anything until we accept that. I cannot do this alone. I don't love myself enough to do it alone, but I can do it if we have a pact, if I am keeping up my end of the bargain. I have been a longtime perpetrator of hate crimes against myself, and I am turning myself in. I have had enough.
Margaret ChoWhen it comes to children, my mom doesn't believe in borders. She loves all children, and that's a good example of mothering the world. I need to do that, but before I can, I need to get over my fear of kids in the first place.
Margaret ChoI think that when you are accused of being in bad taste it can be quite positive. You're challenging the notions of polite society. I'd like to put across the notion that bad taste is actually good for you.
Margaret ChoWhen I was 14, I told my mother I was going to drop out of high school and go do stand-up comedy. All she said was 'Oh maybe it's better if you just die,' because it was killing her that I was doing this.
Margaret ChoIt's not the best between my family and me. There are so many crimes left unpunished, debts unpaid, white elephants in the middle of the room that no one will even offer a peanut to. We are in the red, emotionally speaking.
Margaret ChoI don't want to hurt anybody because of their looks. That's been used to hurt me so much.
Margaret ChoWe women are constantly at war with our bodies, it is hard to find amnesty for ourselves.
Margaret ChoThere's vulnerability - so I have to make sure the audience is certain that I know what I'm doing. There's vulnerability there because my heart is open, but at the same time I definitely have a lot of "weapons" at my disposal. I have all the language, I have all of the moment - I have all of that to spar with somebody, to take anything on.
Margaret ChoI thought I was so ugly for so long, and I wasted so much of my life on this dumb notion.
Margaret ChoI want to get married but I look at husbands the same way I look at tattoos. I want one, but I can't decide what I want, and I don't want to be stuck with something I'd grow to hate and have surgically removed.
Margaret ChoI think I started out okay but with AIDS came a great deal of silence about gayness and this period of lose and morning, but at the same time a kind of feeling like you wanted to get back into the closet because being gay was such a terrible thing at that point.
Margaret ChoI feel like this song [Yello, "Oh Yeah"] was probably done in a couple of minutes in a studio. There was probably no thought behind it; they were just playing with some samples and threw it together. I feel like there's no dream behind the song. Usually there's a dream or some kind of passion attached to a song. This song feels very empty. It made a lot of money for the songwriters but at the expense of culture.
Margaret ChoI have learned to love that which is meant to harm me, so that I can stand in the way of those who are less strong. I can take the bullets for those who aren't able to.
Margaret ChoThe incognito of lower class employment is an effective cloak for any dagger one might wish to hide.
Margaret ChoI am so beautiful, sometimes people weep when they see me. And it has nothing to do with what I look like really, it is just that I gave myself the power to say that I am beautiful, and if I could do that, maybe there is hope for them too. And the great divide between the beautiful and the ugly will cease to be. Because we are all what we choose.
Margaret ChoI urge you all today, especially today during these times of chaos and war, to love yourself without reservations and to love each other without restraint. Unless you're into leather.
Margaret ChoTry to put your happiness before anyone else's, because you may never have done so in your entire life, if you really think about it, if you are really honest with yourself.
Margaret ChoI think that reaching out to kids that feel really isolated is a life saving gesture that we have a responsibility as older queers to do.
Margaret ChoPeople are so sensitive about race that they can't hear someone speaking about their life in a very true way, or doing satire or political parody.
Margaret ChoThe newest victims of the nation's foreclosure crisis are pets, which is extremely distressing to me.
Margaret ChoWhen we're talking about feminism, I get sort of lost in the argument. Because as a woman of color, I don't know where I belong in this argument. Where do I say, 'I would be happy to have less money'? How do you fight for your rights when I'm super-grateful to be here at all?
Margaret ChoOne place that I really feel comfortable is being a comedienne. I'm very socially inept. There's so many things that I can not do in life, and this is, like, the one thing that I have mastery over. It's my world. And anybody who's coming to the show, it's like they're coming because they know that this is my world.
Margaret ChoSomething as important as marriage equality, which is now a constitutional right [in the USA], is something that cannot be denied. It's also very un-Christian, if you think about the way Christ was and Christ's teachings. This is not loving. This is anger. This is hatred. This is bigotry. And it's wrong.
Margaret ChoI punished myself and avoided my reflection in mirrors and any windows. I would see myself reflected back, and I would look away, trying to pretend I didn't exist, because I hated myself so much.
Margaret ChoPeople are really terrified of me. I don't know why, I'm very nice, but people are very intimidated by me.
Margaret Cho