I've always found inspiration in icons that were really of purpose in their craft or calling. From Bob Marley to Maya Angelou to Malcolm X, inspiration came from seeing how committed they were to their vision and determining it themselves.
— Amanda Seales
I feel like I have a unique voice that's true and authentic, and we need more of that. If I can inspire more of that, I need to do that in as many places as possible.
I'm a weirdo and an only child. That comes together to create one-woman shows.
My brain doesn't work in a typical linear fashion: my brain is vibrant and fast and bright and on 10,000 all the time.
To act like everyone has had the same access to share their funny is willful ignorance at its best - and just a good ol' fashioned front at its truth.
When people agree with you, they'll just like it and keep it moving, but when people don't agree with you, that's when they come for your whole neck.
I was in the music industry as Amanda Diva for 10 years but I realized that I had bigger work to do and needed to get busy doing that work. I really do believe that I'm here for a bigger purpose, and I want to be a role model and speak for the black community and black women specifically. Humor was the way it felt most organic and effective for me.
I've made it my business to condition and train folks to understand that you'll never know what's going to come out of my mouth.
If you're not good at juggling, then you're not juggling. I always tell people that. If you're dropping a lot of balls, then maybe you shouldn't juggle. And that's fine... there's different ways of working.
I used to work at Sirius. And when I got my job at Sirius, I was only 21. It was my first job out of college. And when I think back to what 21 was, though, you're an idiot.
Growing up, dating seemed pretty straightforward: If someone was interested in getting to know you on a romantic level, they approached, exchanged info, and proceeded to communicate with you in a consistent fashion between outings of various natures.
I speak from a black woman's perspective, and that's a specific perspective, but sometimes there are things I want to be understood by folks who may not have an entryway into that concept, so I have to think about how I can open the space to bring those people in. And that does require balance.
I want to be able to do what I want to do and have people care about it.
Whether you agree with Trump or not, you can't deny he looks like a piece of pizza with the cheese off. It's just what it is.
The truth is what facts are. I like facts. I like things to line up and be clear, and when we are honest and true about things, it helps things to make sense, and it cuts out a lot of the fat that gets in the way and causes for the misunderstandings that I believe lead to violence and... dysfunction, etc.
I always say your truth is your compass to your purpose.
My goal is to just have options.
My mother is black, from Grenada, so my blackness was always there, but It wasn't until I started hanging with the upperclassmen black actors at my high school that I really got my roots in being a black American, which is a distinctly different identity and experience.
For a lot of comics who aren't as silly or physical but more intellectual, we get looked at as 'alt comics.' No, I'm still a black comic, and there are black people who want to hear my type of black comedy, but that space hasn't been built out for us.
I want to create and write scripted and unscripted shows, digital shows, stage shows.
The amount of silliness that happens to me is insane.
America was made for white men. Literally, at the time of the writing of the new country's Constitution, only white men could own land, and only men who owned land could vote.
I have planted my flag in my comedy being useful for social change.
I'm not hostile. I'm passionate.
For a long time, I didn't have a balance in terms of my worth and my market value; I was just a very talented person who hadn't done any work that truly demonstrated my talent.
As an artist, it's incredible to see folks see you and then be able to give that back and to be able to send two girls to a Black Girls Empowerment camp.
I don't do things that I'm not good at.
Wokeness, for what it's worth, is a buzzword that a lot of people are not truly understanding the depth of. I think sometimes things work their way into the zeitgeist, and they lose their weight. And wokeness is one of those words that has reached that point.
Even when I was in school, I was doing papers and writing poems; I always had an edge to my delivery. It was never conscious, but it was more so my organic way of thinking about things.
I want to see my career evolve into limitlessness.
I've always been funny, but I never considered it as a particular career path until my early 30s, when I realized that hip-hop wasn't going to be the long term.
My mom is an incredibly direct person, and I like things to make sense.
I definitely am very secure with my body and my likes and dislikes and the imperfections that some might call flaws. I'm like, 'Those are my thighs; it's just what it is.' I think a lot of that has to do also with... women being a lot more vocal about the fact that, you know, being flawless is false.
I just love being able to create and make things that inspire and that make people laugh, and my motivation to keep going is to make more opportunities to do that.
I've been grinding a really long time, and I've been broke for a lot of years. I may not have looked like it because, if you're fly, you don't need a dollar - you just need charisma. But I was riding hope as currency for a very long time. I feel like now, more than ever, I'm in my purpose, and comedy is the foundation of that.
My whole intention is to break down these limitations of what a black comedian is supposed to be and to open up a space.
I'm constantly fighting the angry black woman stigma, the 'You're pretty, you can't be funny' stigma.
When I speak of diversity, I don't mean replacement of white comics. I don't mean acceptance by white comics. We comics who weren't born into the white guy paradigm of 'funny' don't need a handout. We don't need a PC push. We don't need 'a look.'
I can't even believe that in 2018, I still have to lay out why diversity in anything matters.
In music, you ain't really got to be able to sing. In comedy, you may be cute, you may be able to add a little extra to your routine, but if you're not funny, no one's really rocking with you - and if you're a black woman, you better be hilarious. As usual, we always have to do the most.
As a black woman, the government is so much in my life, and it always has been.
I think, for a long time, I didn't have people who understood where I was coming from. They were giving me advice on what would be good for them.
Auditioning for people you know is way more stressful than auditioning for people you don't know. And you have to pretend that you don't know because they're just staring at you.
Ideally, we date the folks who are dating for the same reason we are.
'Smart Funny & Black' came about because I felt that black comedians were being considered as only capable of a certain type of comedy - sort of physical, kind of silly - and I felt like we are not a monolith, and our comedy isn't, either.
In most cases, a year older is a good thing. More wisdom, more experience, and less damns given.
I know some people would be like, 'Why are you responding to these racists on Twitter?' Sometimes it's for the purpose of letting them know they're being watched and that they're going to have to answer for their words.
Comedy has allowed me to be my 100-percent-true self, as opposed to other places, where I feel like that's been a hindrance. Whether it's music or poetry or hosting, people want you to be something else: they want you to be packaged in a certain way.
If I couldn't get to where I wanted to by being my organic self - which is a smart, funny, unapologetically black woman - then I felt like it's not worth doing it if I can't do it the most organic way possible. Which is why I left the music business.
You're flawless when you embrace the things about you that you don't necessarily like, but you own them because they're yours.
