Top 50 Larry Wilmore Quotes

My father was in law enforcement growing up. He was a probation officer. And I’ve always understood the point of view of the peace officer, you know, because of my dad.

I always said I’m not disappointed with Obama because I voted for him because he was black, and as long as he kept being black, I was a happy man.

As long as you say I’m the guy who’s real about it, I have no problem being the person who people look to to talk about race.

‘Westworld’ is bizarre. I don’t know what to think of ‘Westworld.’

Sometimes I’d say what’s bad for the country is good for my business, unfortunately.

One of the missions of ‘The Nightly Show’ was to have a conversation with America in a sense, and talk about the things that people didn’t want to talk about it.

Many times, when you do what I do or work in journalism in general, people try to not explicitly present their opinions on topics.

You are always, always overwhelmed by positive response because you know it can go either way.

I guess I hadn’t counted on ‘The Unblackening’ happening to my time slot as well.

I just feel it’s important to make sure that behind the scenes is as filled with diverse voices as in front of the scene is.

I don’t take pleasure in anyone’s demise, really.

I have a free voice. I have a free mind. I have freedom of expression.

It used to be that the black comic figure had to have this bravado and always showed strength.

There’s something about a new family moving into the White House that’s kind of interesting, even if you didn’t vote for them.

I’d love to set up shop somewhere and develop projects – film, TV, digital would be a fun thing to do.

When you have somebody like a Donald Trump – he made no bones about trying to disprove Barack Obama’s Americanism in trying to make him out to be some foreigner that was born in Kenya. I thought that to be very racist.

I really don’t have a need to be on TV all that much, to be honest with you.

The last thing I would ever do is try to become a network programmer.

I was taught from a very early age that I had to work twice as hard to get half as much. That was the world I grew up in – a very strong work ethic.

Not everybody’s gonna get your vision.

I’m too tired most of the time. Why do I have to take a stand on everything? Sometimes, I’m just not mad at it.

You have to stay alert. You’ve got to keep raising your game.

I think the biggest thing is voice. Whose voice is it? Who gets to control the narrative?

When you use the word ‘fair’ in television, you’re already in a fantasy world. Nothing is really fair in television.

I didn’t even know how much of a feminist I was, and I realized, ‘Oh my God, I was raised by a single mom who had to raise six kids. I have three sisters. Larry, you’ve been a feminist your whole life, and you really didn’t know it until you’ve been presented with these issues.’

I’m not the type of person to have a schadenfreude.

I do not look to Hollywood to give me character clues.

I love the word ‘dearth,’ by the way. It’s one of my favorite words.

‘The Daily Show,’ at its core, is the answer to the nightly news.

It was the Cosby issue that made me realize how much I really cared about women’s issues and how much I realize it’s important for me to be an advocate for issues that aren’t necessarily my own, to be an ally for issues.

I was an athlete, so I hung out with the jocks. I was smart, so I hung out with the nerdy kids. I was also into theater, so I hung out with the misfits… So I was always in different groups, and those groups never quite overlapped. The racial part of it was just another one of those groups, in one sense.

The thing that’s worked for me is having as much of a connection to the material as possible. And sometimes the material requires a more straightforward approach, and sometimes it requires a little more silliness, you know?

I really enjoyed being able to be one of the people who weighed in on the events. As hard as it is to do that every day, because it is exhausting, it really is fun to do that, especially when you feel like you really did something well, and it really hit.

Any voting group has an interest that they want from politicians. That’s why politicians have to talk to different people. But to reduce the black interest to free stuff is so insulting. It just makes me apoplectic.

I really love storytelling.

My white counterparts are always pushing the line, and they are fearless, so why can’t I do that, too?

You never want to defend a joke. People get to choose whether or not to laugh and whether or not they think something is funny.

Sometimes I’m successful, and sometimes I’m not, but I don’t mind going down trying.

We had a segment called Tampon Tuesdays that I was very proud of; that was hilarious because there are a lot of women’s issues out there that a lot of people don’t know about because they’re not women, and they don’t have to go through them.

Maybe I’ll write an episode of ‘Black-ish’ about a guy being fired in late-night.

When you’re taking chances, you know it’s not going to please everybody.

I thought Sarah Palin was the ultimate expression of comic outrageousness in a person.

I have this rule. It’s called ‘Top Dog-Underdog:’ Underdog gets to make fun of Top Dog, but Top Dog can’t make fun of Underdog. But you know what? You get Top Dog, you get to be Top Dog. Congratulations! And that dynamic happens not just in race but in many different ways. It’s like the male-female dynamic.

I don’t have that kind of Southern experience of the fire-and-brimstone preacher type of thing. Certainly not in my comedy.

You never know in TV – sometimes you’re on at the wrong time at the wrong place. Sometimes you don’t get a chance to catch on.

I’m actually a big fan of having all the different types of voices on television. I think it gives people a nice little buffet that they can just pick and choose how they want to get their news and entertainment, I guess.

My joke is that three black people watch ‘The Daily Show’ at any given time. So if I’m watching it, that counts, and there’s only two left. It’s a silly joke, but you know, different types of comedy reach different cultures.

When most people become president, even if you disagree with their ideology, you can still agree that they would have the competence to run something… With Trump, I do not have the confidence of that at all.

I am from Pomona, California. I was born in Los Angeles.

In my time, I experienced a black man not being able to be the quarterback of a football team.