Larry Wilmore
I have a free voice. I have a free mind. I have freedom of expression.Collection: Freedom
Sometimes I'd say what's bad for the country is good for my business, unfortunately.Collection: Business
When you're taking chances, you know it's not going to please everybody.
There are tragedies that happen all the time in America, but there are certain types of tragedies that kind of pull us together and make us pause and give us a chance to reflect about where we are, where we're going, and that sort of thing.
MSNBC got rid of so many black people, I thought Boko Haram was running that network.
I love the word 'dearth,' by the way. It's one of my favorite words.
You have to stay alert. You've got to keep raising your game.
In my time, I experienced a black man not being able to be the quarterback of a football team.
My parents are from the Midwest. They're from Evanston, Illinois. They moved out to Los Angeles right before I was born.
The first show I worked on was 'In Living Color.' I think 'The Daily Show' was the culmination of having that point of view - being able to look at this third rail in our society.
I would consider myself more a passionate centrist.
Doing a TV show is different because it's more of a TV version of something. A more focused take on things.
It's a challenge to do satire when the thing you're satirizing is almost beyond satire, but I think that's a challenge for everybody.
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.
As a culture, we've all agreed with the opinion that the world should be seen in a certain way, so at 'The Nightly Show,' our chief mission was to disagree with that premise. And to see the world in a way that may not make everybody comfortable. And to present it with a cast of people who don't always get to have a voice on that.
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.
I'm not the type of person to have a schadenfreude.
I don't take pleasure in anyone's demise, really.
The business part of it can be very vexing. You always have to keep certain metrics and everything. Because all I can do is make a good show.
Many times, when you do what I do or work in journalism in general, people try to not explicitly present their opinions on topics.
I think the term 'fair reporting' is overused when it comes to journalism. I think saying they want to report evenly is more accurate.
Sometimes I'm successful, and sometimes I'm not, but I don't mind going down trying.
In my career, I'm always trying to do something different.
I guess I hadn't counted on 'The Unblackening' happening to my time slot as well.
When you use the word 'fair' in television, you're already in a fantasy world. Nothing is really fair in television.
I am from Pomona, California. I was born in Los Angeles.
My father had a lot of allergies, and he just didn't like the cold of Chicago, and his father - his parents had broken up when he was young, and his father had lived in Pasadena for a while, and he kind of fell in love with Southern California.
A lot of my family on both sides have worked in education and nursing, and my grandmother was a nurse; my sister is a nurse, and her - my other sister's daughter is going into nursing. There's a lot of that in the family.
I thought Sarah Palin was the ultimate expression of comic outrageousness in a person.
Whenever I did sitcoms, that always happened on your show. Once the show was on the air, it takes on a life of its own. It develops, and it becomes something else.
If you look at somebody like Sam Bee, she got to create her own thing without any expectations that there was a show there. That was probably liberating for them.
Salt Lake City gave me a lot of surprises. How progressive the city actually is, for instance, compared to the rest of Utah - it's like this purple dot in a sea of red. And the government there is kind of a mix of conservative values and progressive ideas.
I'm not trying to prove anything for the right or the left. Which gives me freedom to make jokes about either side, too.
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.
I just believe what I believe.
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.
Police have to have one of the most difficult jobs in society today. But at the same time, I think, a person in that position - their responsibility has to be high as well.
I'm not a homosexual, but if I can be an ally for that issue, I think it's fantastic.
'The Daily Show,' at its core, is the answer to the nightly news.
I always compartmentalized so many different things.
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.
I don't have that kind of Southern experience of the fire-and-brimstone preacher type of thing. Certainly not in my comedy.
It used to be that the black comic figure had to have this bravado and always showed strength.
The fact that we live in a world where black people have to strategize so they're not brutalized by police is insane.
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.'
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'm not going to grouse and complain when there's nothing I can do about it. Once you've broken up with somebody, arguing with them is not going to bring them back. You may want to stop their Twitter account or call them up late at night, but they made the decision to leave.
People aren't autonomous creatures. They're under a lot of pressure themselves.
It's really not my thing to go after what comedians are doing. Because I always feel like we're jesters at the end of the day.
I'd rather go after the people who are the guardians or what we're doing - the news people and the politicians and that sort of thing. I always feel like those should be my targets, not really entertainers. That's just my personal opinion.