Ali Wong

A lot of women do stand-up as a gateway into acting, but I love stand-up, and to be a good stand-up, you have to go on the road a lot. It means going to places in America where they've never seen a Vietnamese person in their life.

I have this fantasy of relaxing and doing nothing. But I'm obviously very passionate about stand-up comedy. I mean, I keep doing it. So I must be really into it.

I think Asian men are beautiful.

Asian men are the sexiest. They got no body hair from the neck down.

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.

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.

The audience is so important. Because there's something that I might think is super funny, but if it's just not getting the feedback, I have to let it go.

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.

Mothering is just so different now from the way it was before. Especially with my mom. She was like the anti-helicopter mom. She was like an inflatable-tube, blow-up-flamingo-in-the-pool mom. Her philosophy was, the situation will declare itself.

You become like a vampire when you're pregnant: your senses are so sensitive, and your emotions are so heightened - that helps with performance because you really feel things.

Aside from Joan Rivers and Roseanne, it's hard for me to think of any female comedian who's had kids and has a serious level of fame - like, the level where your mother has heard of them.

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.

I want to write my daughter something about how much I love her and what I would want to say to her before I die.

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.

Stand-up will always be my favorite and the most important thing that I do. I view everything else as free money.

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.

The most valuable thing my dad taught me was to never care about what other people thought. When he came to my shows, and I'd announce his presence, he'd stand up with his hands clasped in victory and cheer my name.

I was so boisterous in high-school, I don't think a lot of boys liked me that much 'cause they were like, 'Oh, she's so loud and so crazy.' But then this thing happens in your late twenties, and guys begin to take note of women's personalities more or something.

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.

Some people do specials, like, when they've only been doing comedy for three years or something. Which is fine! But I'm kind of old fashioned, and I knew that I didn't want to do one too early.

A lot of comics will say that the thing about specials now is that they're not special anymore because there are so many of them, and they come and go, and they're not really talked about. They just kind of come and go.

If you want me to perform in Silver Lake - where it looks like 'Vice' magazine threw up everywhere, where all the men are wearing V-necks to their belly buttons, salmon pants, and carrying a screenplay - I'll do it, because they might appreciate a Banksy joke I can't do anywhere else.

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.

Stand-up is no bureaucracy. No one can tell me what to do or not to do.

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.

At the end of the day, I'm not really trying to make a statement with any of my standup.

My dad grew up with straight-up no running water. He slept in a twin bed with his two sisters and his mom, like 'Charlie And The Chocolate Factory' style: like, feet at the head, feet at the head alternating. And then I think his dad slept on, like, a bed of newspapers on a floor in their apartment.

A lot of people get into stand-up as a back door into acting or something. But I really like writing jokes and telling jokes.

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.

I don't want to be that famous.

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.'

Maternity leave is for women to hide and heal their disintegrating body.

To be a trophy wife, you have to be a trophy. I am more of a commemorative plaque.

My parents emphasized experiential learning - in my family, being adventurous was a sign of maturity.

In Hue, Vietnam, we had savory rice pancakes with crumbled shrimp and pork rinds. I've still never had a version as good.

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'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.

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.

I've seen many female comics that a lot of people haven't heard of who are so funny, and I saw them come up, and they were working so hard, and then all of a sudden they had a baby, and they just got tied up in motherhood, and eventually, they kind of just stopped doing stand-up, and I thought it was such a shame.

The concept of 'diversity' was this big moral 'should.' And now with the success of shows like 'Fresh Off the Boat,' 'Empire,' 'Blackish,' and 'Jane the Virgin,' it's become this big business 'must,' which is so great.

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.

All I ever wanted to do was tell jokes for a living.

Breastfeeding is this savage ritual that just reminds you that your body is a cafeteria now.

Some useful advice for all of my Asian-American brothers and sisters - never go paint-balling with a Vietnam veteran.

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.

Stand-up comedy is something that you have to strive to do, multiple times a night, every night, to be good.

When you're pregnant, you're all gassy, and you're hungry, but then you're nauseous.

I would love to dress like Beyonce: some custom-print, neoprene onesie with no pants.

I want to be like a Wendy Murdoch or a Georgina Chapman.

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.