I think feminism is the worst thing that ever happened to women. Our job used to be no job. We had it so good!
Ali Wong
When you're a mom, you need sparkle to compensate for the light inside of you that has died.
To be a trophy wife, you have to be a trophy. I am more of a commemorative plaque.
I have a hoarding problem because my mom is from a third-world country. And she taught me that you can never throw away anything because you never know when a dictator is going to overtake the country and snatch all of your wealth.
With my husband, I do really appreciate the fact that we - even though we're different kinds of Asian, there is a cultural shorthand between us, and I don't have to explain anything. I've dated guys before who weren't Asian-American, and it frustrated me when I would have to defend why beans belong in a dessert.
I constantly peed in my pants up until the 8th grade and wore an extra-large sailor uniform from kindergarten to 8th grade because my mom was scared I'd grow out of it. So I learned to make fun of myself at school and summer camp.
I have a B.A. from UCLA. In ethnic studies.
Asian men are the sexiest. They got no body hair from the neck down.
Stand-up is no bureaucracy. No one can tell me what to do or not to do.
Women, a lot of the time, are so much funnier than men, but they just choose not to do comedy for a living.
Before my dad passed away, I would miss a lot of baby showers and weddings, sacrificed a lot of family and friend events for dumb road dates. I don't do that anymore. It's gone in the other direction. I'm more inclined to put family and friends first.
I liked that improv and sketch comedy were collaborative, but you really depended on other people and a stage to perform. With stand-up comedy, I liked that you had no one else to blame and depend on.
For the first year I lived in New York, I never ate out. I literally just ate lentils and brown rice at home. Sometimes I'd treat myself to this half chicken from Chinatown that cost $3.50.
Just because you become a parent doesn't mean you grew up.
There's a scene in 'Singin' in the Rain' where this guy dances with a giant doll while singing 'Make 'Em Laugh.' I remember loving the pure physicality of it.
A lot of people like to ask me, 'Ali, how on earth do you balance family and career?' Men never get asked that question. Because they don't.
People obsess about casting and representation, but really, all the real work is behind the camera. Casting an Asian American into a bad role where they're shoehorned into these stereotypes is worse than not having cast them at all.
I'm always asked how my husband is feeling about my success with a note of concern. He feels great. It's not hard to feel good about your spouse making money.
In Hue, Vietnam, we had savory rice pancakes with crumbled shrimp and pork rinds. I've still never had a version as good.
I love being a mom and having two kids. But I've had two C-sections, and I have suffered enough. That's my favourite mantra when it comes to motherhood.
I think one of the hardest things to talk about as a comic is having money because it's so unrelatable.
I'm addicted to picking my nose. In a world of red tape and bureaucracy, where it takes forever to buy a house or get a cell-phone plan going, it's so instant to just stick your finger up there and go for something your own body produces.
Whenever I feel mom-guilt, or I feel pressure to be a better mom - to cook salmon on a bed of quinoa for my kids - I just think to myself, 'I... have... suffered... enough.' And then I feel fine about feeding my toddler a bag of chips for dinner.
Every male comedian of note who is over the age of 45 has a kid, and they talk about it and don't get grouped as 'dad comics.'
Breastfeeding is this savage ritual that just reminds you that your body is a cafeteria now.
I'm discovering, and I think other mums are discovering too, that when you become a mum, you don't have to change into this frumpy, wholesome role model who is perfect and loses all of your identity. You can still have the same personality you've always had.
The biggest downside of L.A. is the traffic and parking tickets. They turn me into Michael Douglas in 'Falling Down.'
Making people laugh was the only thing I ever truly excelled at. But at home, I was so quiet with my family, which taught me to be really observant.
My dad was obviously a really quirky, unconventional Asian man who didn't care about what other people thought. When he would fight with my mom, he would be really dramatic. He would be like, 'Devil, get away, for I am God's property.' He would say crazy things that were so melodramatic but so theatrical and funny.
Every comic is taught that you're supposed to have a great seven-minute set and then get a sitcom. And I don't want to get the sitcom.
My dad was a very unconventional Asian American man. He was very much not quiet, not shy, not passive. If he had to fart, he'd do it in the library. He did not care. He was like, 'I don't know these people. I'm uncomfortable, and I need to let it go.'
I think I went through puberty really late in life or something. I always looked like a little, sad Thai boy up until I was 26.
Nothing is off-limits. There's just some things I cannot crack. Politics I can't do. When I start to talk about it, I just get really angry and super sincere. I have never found a way to craft all of that absurdity into funny.
Having a two-year-old is very hard. I feel like I'm in a relationship with an emotionally unstable woman who is also physically abusive and never gets in trouble for it.
My goal is really to just make people laugh with integrity, like, with something that I still find funny.
I didn't expect to be so comfortable handing my child off to a nanny without getting any of her information. As soon as she arrived at my house, I threw my baby in her arms and went to Target.
My husband and I went to Japan for our honeymoon, and you look at, like, the presentation of the food, and it's ridiculous. It looks like a Mondrian painting or something. Everything looks like a bunch of little Hello Kitty erasers when you eat a little bento box in Japan. It's so precise and beautiful and processed and neat.
You can't just be crass without being witty. Angry crass is horrible.
Even now, when I go out people are like, 'What are you doing here? Didn't you just have a baby?' But people never ask a male comic when he's out a week later, like, 'Oh my God, you're so irresponsible! What are you doing out? Who is taking care of the baby?'
There are certainly other female comics who are moms, but I don't know any who are actively touring with their kids. But there are more and more becoming moms, and it's awesome. I feel we're in a super sisterhood.
The word 'supportive' has no place in stand-up comedy. I hate when people are like, 'Support female comedy.' That's not a real genre of comedy. I think if you have true respect for women as three-dimensional creators who are innovative, you wouldn't group them together like that.
Stand-up comedy is something that you have to strive to do, multiple times a night, every night, to be good.
It's really strange being in, like, Addison,Texas, and having people come up to me at a Nordstrom's or a gas station. It's really, really surreal.
That's the difference between a great comic and a bad comic - one has great instincts and has a lot of compassion and can feel what's right and what's wrong.
In order to be the best comic, you have to perform in a wide diversity of rooms.
In giving birth, I knew that I would have to take a break after I had a baby; I just didn't know that it would be, like, six weeks long. Taking a six-week break was a very big deal for me. I have never taken that long of a break from stand-up other than my honeymoon, which was 14 days long.
There's something I want to say, and I haven't been able to articulate it yet, about how it's so rude when people don't admit that they have a nanny.
I'll tell you how I balance family and career. I have a nanny.
I think that's one of the reasons women don't tell people when they've had a miscarriage - they think it's their fault.
Some useful advice for all of my Asian-American brothers and sisters - never go paint-balling with a Vietnam veteran.
