We have been sold a Muslim boogeyman. We are buying into it, and we are terrified, and that terror is causing people to lash out at comedians like myself or women wearing hijabs, or anyone who seems to defend equality for Muslims worldwide.

Christmas coming means one thing for comedians: office party gigs!

There are probably about 50 comedians who would come to my 50th birthday party but I'm not sure how many of them would come to my funeral.

I'm not like most comedians. I don't deal with just heckles - I'm also dealing with threats and anger. Here I am, a brown person on stage being quite blunt. I talk about white privilege; I talk about U.S. imperialistic practices; I talk about colonialism. I'm not saying things that are easy for people to laugh at.

I'm not a confrontational person or comedian. I think we can explore more things if one of us is not fighting with the other. I take it easy. But I do like comedians who are very different from myself: I love dry comics with deadpan one-liners. I look on and think, 'That's amazing; why didn't I think of that?'

At one point when I was very young, when I was first starting out, I thought, 'Well, one day I'll be able to put all the music away and become a real comedian.' But then I realized there are amazing musical comedians out there, that musical comedy is probably something I'll always want to pursue.

Comedians are people who embarrass themselves in style.

You are not a hot mess or hopeless cause just because you're scared or out of sorts. We cannot hang up on the call for courage that speed dials us every day. If facing the simultaneous brokenness and possibility of living were easy, we wouldn't need therapists, besties, teachers, scientists, coaches, healers, artists, and comedians nudging us to critically think, take agency, be more self-compassionate, see our humanity, and stop taking ourselves and our so-called "failures" so seriously. "Failure" is how we learn and grow. Community and solidarity are how we heal.

My mom is two people to me. She's my mom number one and then she's this lady most comedians know as being a legendary owner of a nightclub that's responsible for starting a lot of heavy careers.

To my knowledge I was the first guy really to do what I do. And then later on different comedians started trying doing it.

I thought they may have presumed too much knowledge of certain things for people who are not comedians. Like Montreal. A comic understands what it is and its importance but someone else may not know about it.

When I see a good singer I get teary-eyed. Part of it is jealousy because all comedians are frustrated rock stars. That's a fact.

Every time I've done comedy in like traditional comedy clubs there's always these comedians that do really well with audiences but that the other comedians hate because they're just you know doing kind of cheap stuff like dancing around or doing like very kind of base sex humor a lot and stuff like that.

You can't do anything to be funny. That's cringeworthy. If your humor comes out of a place of love every time you don't make the joke bigger than you. The funniest comedians are in touch with their emotional level.

Sure the comedians who swear or use scatological humor can get laughs but they're uncomfortable laughs.

They don't make you pay for the humor. It's up and down but they're trying to give you as many laughs as possible in 2 minutes. They are the most honest comedians ever.

For the most part comedians are pretty friendly with each other. They always say they badmouth each other but most of the time they're friends. We're the only ones that can really stand our type of humor.

Who knew Rob Lowe was funny? On 'Parks and Rec ' we've got some of the funniest comedy writers some of the funniest comedians in the world working there. And if anything we don't just effuse to one another and be like 'Oh Rob Lowe's really funny ' if he wasn't.

If you think something's funny go with that. Most comedians pull jokes from a place of honesty.

Comedians don't laugh. They're too busy analyzing why it's funny or not.

The comedians I liked were Bill Cosby and Steven Wright like just always as a comedic actor. I always liked Gary Larson who's really funny for a cartoonist obviously.

Normally I name my characters after famous comedians.

There are a lot of famous comedians from Liverpool then obviously the Beatles and the football club. That's what people in Liverpool are passionate about.

Comedians walk out get a feel for the crowd. If it's not going good we change directions. If we got to drag your momma into this thing we will. Whatever we got to do.