A Quote by Carlos Mencia

If I were to say that I grew up in East Los Angeles in the projects poor, I assumed that everybody understood that it came with its own reasons for being the way I am. I didn't get that people needed to understand where my comedy came from; I thought that they knew that. Now I tell people.

Carlos Mencia

Quote Topics

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Quote Author

Carlos Mencia
American - Comedian
Born: October 22, 1967

If I were to say that I grew up in East Los Angeles in the projects, poor, I assumed that everybody understood that it came with its own reasons for being the way I am. I didn't get that people needed to understand where my comedy came from; I thought that they knew that.

Carlos Mencia

Some people are embarrassed to say they came from East St. Louis, Ill., but now more people want to claim it. I grew up in a community center and I knew what it gave me. I always knew I wanted to give back and help people because people helped me.

Jackie Joyner-Kersee

When I came to Los Angeles, it was the first time that I ever felt like I belong somewhere. Not because it was wacky, but because people here understood what I felt like to perform, and there were other kids my age who wanted to do it. I didn't get looked at as God, you freak.

Jennifer Love Hewitt

People who grew up in New York City or Los Angeles tend not to even understand what goes on in the rest of the country. I'm really glad to have grown up in an environment where I actually was kind of a weirdo because I was obsessed with comedy and movies and stuff.

Ed Helms

My passion lies in amazing, complex characters and really well-written stuff - not to say I wouldn't want to do a comedy if the right comedy came along... I'm an actor in Los Angeles, and I have a family I have to support.

Michael Cudlitz

You took a walk on a Sunday afternoon and came to a nice neighborhood, very refined. You saw a small one of these trees through the iron gate leading to someone's yard and you knew that soon that section of Brooklyn would get to be a tenement district. The tree knew. It came there first. Afterwards, poor foreigners seeped in and the quiet old brownstone houses were hacked up into flats, feather beds were pushed out on the window sills to air and the Tree of Heaven flourished. That was the kind of tree it was. It liked poor people.

Betty Smith

First, let me just say that I flew in from Los Angeles last evening. And the plane was absolutely filled with women who were coming from the Greater Los Angeles area to be here. And it wasn't that they were necessarily organized in some particular group. Individual women that I talked to - I said, well, who are you with? They said I'm not with anybody. I just decided I couldn't stay home. I just got up, and I came [to the Women's March].

Maxine Waters

Johnny Depp already seen how alcohol and drugs can get in the way of a career. And you have to remember one thing: Johnny was a guitar player and a rock-and-roller way before he was an actor. When he came to Los Angeles, he came with his band.

Alice Cooper

Georgia was a great place to live, but I wanted to get out because I knew the opportunities for what I was doing - stand-up comedy and eventually acting - were in Los Angeles.

Chris Tucker

I remember when I first came to Los Angeles being staggered by the range of roles open to me. These were leading parts in shiny new projects, and what always excited me was knowing there was a possibility that I could actually get these parts. I always had the impression that I had a chance.

David Harewood

I grew up outside Cleveland, Ohio, and I went to college at Boston University. I majored in film. Then I came out to Los Angeles.

Lauren Shuler Donner

Most people who came here came for economic reasons or sometimes for religious or political reasons. I didn't have any of this. I came here, I liked it, I stayed. So I'm a pure American - even more than people who are born here - because I did it by choice as an adult.

Jacques Pepin

For reasons I didn't understand, I felt I needed to learn how to cook the food of France and knew that I was going to have to get over to the country: to Paris, I'd always assumed.

Bill Buford

I was shocked when I came to New Orleans. I never knew there were beggars on the streets here. I didn't know that there were poor people. I thought this was Heaven, you know?

Emmanuel Jal

I loved my father, but I was not like him. I never needed to believe the best of people. I took them as they were: two-faced, desperate, kind - perhaps all at once. But to Pa, they were all children of god, poor troubled sheep, who only needed love and an even break. He needed the world to back up what his religion told him about people. And when it came down to a choice between reason and faith, he let go of reason.