Top 120 Quotes & Sayings by John Cho

I didn't think it was possible for Asians to be actors.

Just because it's in a movie doesn't mean it's real.

I grew up speaking Korean, but my dad spoke English very well. I learned a lot of how to speak English by watching television.

I just didn't see anyone on TV who looked like me, and then I saw George Takei being cool and piloting the spaceship on television.

'Lost' was a phenomenon, like Elvis.

The key to doing 'Harold and Kumar' movies is you make it earnest. Primarily what we do is make Harold and Kumar's relationship and friendship believable, and we don't actually work on being that funny.

The goal of Asians in the arts is plurality of roles. I've always been hindered by me over-thinking what is a stereotype and what isn't.

It's so funny that Hollywood has become so entrenched in its formulas. Because what I've experienced is that the good stuff comes from places you don't expect.

I am a little curmudgeonly about new media.

With 'The Exorcist,' a lot of things went into it. I hadn't seen the show until they asked me, and then I checked the show out and thought it was very well done.

You're trying to grow up, and you don't want to be like your parents, and that gets mixed up with being Korean... They brought their values from Korea, and I accepted them because I didn't know anything more. But as I grow older, I feel more Korean every year; it's very strange.

Everyone posts everything in real time as it happens.

For a while, I was feeling like I was always playing characters that weren't specifically Korean or specifically Asian, even - that they were characters who were originally written white, and then they would cast me. And I used to consider that a badge of honor because that meant I had avoided stereotypes.

I've thought for years, sometimes against my will, about what kind of son I'm supposed to be, what's expected. Being Korean, that's a particularly charged question. Is your duty to your culture or to your parent? Is your life your own, or the second half of your parents' life? Who owns your life?

I have this nightmare that one day I will have to look at every picture I've ever taken with people in an airport or in bars or restaurants, and it will make me very sad.

You know, I always root for the older athlete. I root for the second album. I root for solo careers after the rock star breaks the band apart.

I wanted to explore Korean-American characters. And 'Columbus' did address that. The father-son dynamic felt very real to me.

There's only so much I can do to effect change - and really, the thing that I can do that's most effective is to work and to do good work. That, I feel, is speaking out in its own way.

Whenever I'm on my way to a premiere or something, I always have a good laugh in the car... because it's all so absurd - I'm one generation removed from starvation.

There is a real Harold Lee.

The more roles there are, the more actors there are.

'Sesame Street' early on and then 'Little House on the Prairie' was a big deal in our house. I always identified with 'Little House' because they were wanderers, and there was something about being an immigrant.

Early on, I played a Chinese delivery person, and even that, which was very innocuous, felt like I was somehow betraying myself. I felt very self-conscious on set doing that role, with a crew that was almost entirely white.

I've played roles that aren't expected of an Asian.

When I saw 'My Fair Lady,' I was surprised at how mean and misogynistic Henry was. Maybe that's why it's dropping out of public consciousness.

I don't know what the next frontier is, but good comedy should put its toe into taboo waters. You have to transgress a little bit, and that area shifts with culture and with the year.

When I started acting... the community was largely Chinese-American or Japanese-American, so even then I felt like a minority in the minority.

With acting, you are a small part of the creative process, and sometimes it is hard to feel like you are making an impact.

When I first started acting in college, at Cal, the thing that I loved about acting was not being onstage but going into rehearsals. The thing, as I look back on it now, that I was most attracted to, was that I felt like I'd found my family. It was just a bunch of loonies.

I think my parents were surprisingly cool with me entering the arts. Although, I think they thought it was going to be a phase, and they didn't expect me to actually stick with it, and rightfully so. They were concerned whether I could afford groceries, being an actor.

For me, the most interesting thing is longevity and sustaining a career, because that's what's truly difficult.

I never saw 'Home Alone.'

Whenever I meet a Korean, I ask about their immigration history.

The thing about kissing men - how do people stand it? The stubble is maddening.

I try to take roles that don't fall within the parameters of any Asian stereotype.

'Star Trek' seems to be an appeal to our better nature, the side of ourselves that works toward peace and cooperation and understanding and knowledge and yearns to seek out knowledge rather than the side that wants to divide and control one another.

People expect me to be funnier.

Most people deal with grief in an awkward way, and that can be funny.

Sometimes I feel like I don't dream big enough.

I personally would love to see Harold and Kumar with children. I think that would be hilarious.

It's hard in America as a writer of color, an actor of color, not to get caught up in race and culture. But you're also supposed to be able to write characters and scenes in a way where it's just a matter of fact, a component.

The scariest thing is to go into a new situation for myself, and yet I have a job where I do that every few months, meet a hundred new people, and then have to perform in a very highly pressurized environment.

The message of 'Star Trek,' if there is one, seems to be that we should try to live up to the very best that we're capable of.

Actors are supposed to be these runaways that get in a covered wagon filled with hats and tambourines and go from town to town making people smile.

I have a few go-to moves like jazz hands, shake the booty, stupid eyes. It was once a mating ritual, but now it's all about looking silly and making the kids smile.

When Mindy Kaling asks, I try my best to say yes.

I've never even seen a Cheech and Chong movie.

I'm not an activist, I'm an actor. I don't want to be an activist.

I would love to do Shakespeare, either onstage or on film.

As an immigrant, I learned by watching other people.

I want to walk the bases - I want to do all the actor-y stuff.

I'm not a natural-born actor. So it's been a very slow learning curve for me.

Part of my mission as an actor has been to define what an American is.

I grew up watching the Lakers.

I'd like to be in a Western.

The biggest boss has the clearest desk.

Good things will come from self-expression.

I've found it to be true that sometimes a stranger can give you advice that stays with you, utter truths the closest people in your life have trouble saying.

It'd be nice if Asian actors could be perceived as profitable, which is the bottom line. We're perceived as not mattering much fiscally.

Our species likes being social.