Kamau Quotes & Sayings

When I was a teenager, black pride became newly popular again. Suddenly a lot of black people were wearing the fake kente cloth and red black and green and Bob Marley. That was sort of my window into finding my own identity as a black person. — W. Kamau Bell

Meditate. Let the light of the heart engulf you. — Gurumayi Chidvilasananda

Some things just strike me as funny. The way things play out just makes me laugh sometimes. It drives my wife crazy sometimes because I'll just be laughing for no reason. — W. Kamau Bell

There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. — John F. Kerry

That's the nature of my [stand-up] act: black man with a white baby. — W. Kamau Bell

There is a linear way in which black comedians are expected to talk about race by all audiences - black people are like this, white people are like this - and it really is hard to break through that. I never was doing it that way. — W. Kamau Bell

This Chocolate Orgasm is the best chocolate ice cream I've
ever had."
"Mikey helped with that one," Dahlia heard herself say.
Mari Belle laughed, a light, pretty sound. "I sense his
influence in the Hazel's Nuts. — Jamie Farrell

Leon strolled into the foyer, coming to a complete stop when he saw me holding the blade. "For the love of the gods, who gave that to you?"

I pointed the sharp edge. "Seth."

Seth arched a brow at me. "Wow. Thanks. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

I think a lot of people get into stand-up to be the center of attention, which is perfectly legitimate. But I think I got in there to be heard. — W. Kamau Bell

What am I unbiased about? Let's see. I don't think about being unbiased, at all. With the entertainment industry, there was a point at which I felt like I had to be not only pro-myself but anti-others. — W. Kamau Bell

I think the need to go on stage speaks to some sort of a profound psychological deficit, but something that happened when you were a kid. Or something your parents did. — W. Kamau Bell

I'm most biased about how white people have to learn to shut up when the conversation of racism comes up. White people have to learn to listen. Whether they agree with what they're hearing or not, they have to know to shut up and listen. — W. Kamau Bell

I'm of the opinion that if you step on stage and you're not a straight white male, you're automatically making a political statement whether you know it or not. — W. Kamau Bell

It doesn't do any good to just be on the side of black people. The funnier comedic position is to be on the side of oppressed people in general. — W. Kamau Bell

I feel that nothing important ever happens that is not revealed to me beforehand. — Anne Hutchinson

I feel like you can share as many jokes as you want to because no joke you do on Twitter is ever gonna be so big on Twitter, for the most part, that you can't say it on stage that same night. — W. Kamau Bell

The best version of comedy is when you can get to an issue where, at some point, you're not firmly on one side or the other, and you can see both sides. The more we become about the issues, the more successful we are. — W. Kamau Bell

W. Kamau Bell is in the vanguard of a new era of American comedy for an unsettling, troubling, and strangely hopeful time. Firmly in the fearless tradition of Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, & Chris Rock. Comedy as common sense purged of the absurd hypocrisy that is Our America. — Vernon Reid

To be a true comic, you have to have a signature move. You ever watch wrestling? And your favorite wrestler has the one move that he always does to finish his opponent off, right? Like when he climbs on the rope, and he always jumps off the top rope and finishes off his opponent - that's what a comic has. — J. B. Smoove

You pretty much have to be bad at it [stand-up] for several years to get good at it, so there's no avoiding embarrassing yourself. — W. Kamau Bell

They don't have a case," Bob said. "I don't even know how they got an indictment." "We know," Kamau and i said. "Their case is utterly absurd," Evelyn said. "We know," Kamau and i droned again. "Their witnesses are as phony as three-dollar bills," Evelyn said. "We know." "They don't have one piece of physical evidence," Evelyn ranted. "No photographs, no fingerprints, no witnesses, no nothing." "We know," Kamau and i chanted in unison. — Assata Shakur

A market economy is a tool - a valuable and effective tool - for organizing productive activity. A market society is a way of life in which market values seep into every aspect of human endeavour. It's a place where social relations are made over in the image of the market. — Michael Sandel

You might not agree with something, but it doesn't mean you don't need to listen to it. White people have to accept that they don't always know about racism. — W. Kamau Bell

As a person of color, you're in a PhD level racism class, every day. Every day, I'm in a deep racism seminar. And I'm not saying that white people aren't taking that class, but they don't show up that often and they're auditing it. — W. Kamau Bell

Comedy is like expensive cheese. Well, it's like cheese, in general. Everybody likes what they like, and everything they don't like, they think is the worst. — W. Kamau Bell

Our fate and destiny is in our hands. Blaming others for our failures is wrong because we can independently choose our circumstances. Wake up, smell the coffee and roll up your sleeves. — Boniface Kamau Zablon

If I could email my jokes to the crowd and get the same immediate response [as during stand-up], I'd do that. — W. Kamau Bell

...it is not enough to be free
of the whips, principalities and powers — Edward Kamau Brathwaite

There's an elitism that comes out with the entertainment industry. I'll talk about some shows, but I'm not gonna say that you're dumb for watching one over the other. I just let it go. I don't have to declare a fatwa on any of these things. I've gotten over some of my elitism. — W. Kamau Bell

He pulled her to him and kissed her softly on the lips. 'You blow me away,' he whispered.
'Ha-ha,' she said, but Travis refused to go along with the pun.
'I'm serious, sweetheart. I've never felt like this before.'
His eyes were deep green and so full of love that tears sprang to Lily's eyes. 'Me either. — Bella Andre