Larry Wilmore Quotes

Saying slavery was the cause of secession isn't politically correct; it's correct correct.

You know that sadness and rage you feel about your money? That's the way some of us feel about people.

The Oscar nominations are out, and they're so white a grand jury has decided not to indict them.

I love writing family stories.

My basic political philosophy is, I ain't mad at that. Which basically means I don't have to have a strong opinion about everything. 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. Like, What do you think about gay marriage? I ain't mad at you, you're gay and you're married: I ain't mad at you, go do it.

"Keep it 100" means keeping it 100 percent real. It comes from the expression ... "keeping it real," which means you are being completely honest and 100 percent real means you are really being honest, which is kind of a contradiction of sorts. You're either being honest or you're not.

I do believe that the Mormon Church is at kind of an awakening, in two different ways: More people are becoming aware of it, and it's becoming a force to be reckoned with. There's a lot of Mormon converts globally.

I don't care if my opinion falls on the right or the left. I'm more of what I call a passionate centrist. I just believe what I believe. I'm not trying to prove anything for the right or the left. Which gives me freedom to make jokes about either side, too.

It seems that there's a constant humbling - I don't know if that's the right word - because things are disproved all the time with new discoveries, at least that's the way it feels sometimes in the layman's world. Like, people will make proclamations of something to be true, and then 50 years later that's proven wrong because there's something else.

During my career as a standup and actor, I realized it was very frustrating for me to get hired because Hollywood was hiring a different kind of brother, you know, and I was doing political humor... In order for me to really have a long career, I'm going to have to learn how to write and produce for myself... I had no idea I was really going to like it and I'm very fortunate to be successful. But the idea was to always eventually create something for myself. That was the idea from the beginning when I went into writing and producing.

We, Catholics, share many of the moral guidelines of Mormons, the difference is you guys take it seriously. When the church says something we don't agree with we say, "Oh don't be so crazy." We just laugh it off.

It almost seems like God is transforming into just a strictly spiritual advisor, a personal-transformation type of figure more than an explainer of the world, you know?

Science was the known and then people would place God in the unknown, like God explained the unknown.

There always seemed to be a place for God and, to me, it seemed like God was a place in the unknown side of the ledger.

You could be a music prodigy at age 4, like Mozart, but you can't be a writing prodigy.

I think it was Fran Lebowitz who said that there are no writing prodigies. You have to have something to write about.

I try to impart this when people say they want to be a writer and they want to go into show biz. I say, "Well, have you taken any courses? You can't just have a passion for it; you have to prepare yourself for a life of it."

I remember we had a visit by a helicopter at our school when I was in grade school, and I was punished that day and didn't get to see it. To this day, I am so mad I never got to see that helicopter land! I took my first ride in a helicopter recently, and that's what I thought, "Yes, finally the circle is complete!"

A lot of science started off as magic, where people were burned at the stake for doing science basically.

When you're in the eye of the hurricane, you're making the show - you just want the show to be good, you want it to be appreciated and those types of things.

I grew up in California. I was outside of the city, not directly in it. So I did have an experience of the sky, but for me, it was the idea of space exploration that fueled my interest. I grew up in that age of the astronauts, and I was fascinated that we could leave the Earth.

When I was a kid, I was very much interested in magic and science. They fueled interest in one another.

Even though you're in charge you're not completely in ownership. You know, the audience takes a huge ownership of your show.

There's a lot of magic in science, so to speak.

I've always felt like I had a guardian angel in some of those ways.

I like to get things going. I get so many different ideas, whether it's film, TV, whatever.

When I was born there were still different drinking fountains you had to drink out of.

When you work in television you're in the writer's room all the time. You can't take 10 days or a week to go watch movies. Nobody's going to sign up for that. But it's something I had always thought if I was every asked I would definitely do it if I had the time to do it.

I started as a standup comic and an actor.

I don't have that kind of Southern experience, of the fire-and-brimstone preacher type of thing. Certainly not in my comedy. I come more from the guilt-ridden, neurotic type of [ - ] I have more in common with the Jewish brand of comedy.

Catholic and Jew - it's very closely related, a lot of holidays, a lot of guilt, a lot of the same things going on.

You go, dark energy! Go on, dark matter. They don't understand you, dark matter. They don't get you.

It was tough when people would say, "Aren't you so excited?" about the new show and I couldn't really say, "Yes, well, I'm going through a divorce right now, too."

When I was a kid, there was kind of a given that there were some really bad, racist police out there. That's just what America was like when I was a kid.

Hollywood wanted a certain type of comic - that Def Jam comedy style of comic that was very loud, very brash, very much from the ghetto, had that sensibility.

I've always been sort of entrepreneurial. ... I felt that I needed to learn how to write and produce so I could write my own thing and not worry about Hollywood finding me.

I don’t want to slam somebody else’s religion. I mean as a Catholic, we’re basically cannibals: We eat Jesus every Sunday, you know? So who am I to say your religion is creepy?