34 Issa Rae Quotes That Will Inspire You to Break Barriers

Issa Rae is killin’ it for the culture. It’s been a golden year for the black woman creative, we all have come to know, love, and admire.

What began as a YouTube series of her hilarious jokes and wildly relatable plot lines, has grown into a game changing front of television magic.

Issa Rae stepped into her lane and has been in full gear ever since. Her HBO show Insecure is breaking barriers and reminding the black community what it is we are all capable of.

Issa, a girl from Maryland (by way of L.A.) and a self-proclaimed awkward girl at heart, has carved her place in history as she is taking the world of television production by storm.

Along with executive producing, writing and starring in her own show, Issa is a published author and has been brewing magic in the background with her independent production company which has been churning out meaningful content on their YouTube channel.

There is no stopping her and we all have so much we can learn from this Mocha Girl on a mission to change the world. We have for you a roundup of her best quotes that will move you, make you laugh, and inspire your to break through your own barriers.

34 Issa Rae Quotes That Will Inspire You to Break Barriers

1.” I would love ‘Awkward Black Girl’ to be on television, with the right team of people who understand and get it. If ‘Awkward Black Girl’ could make it to HBO starring a dark-skinned black girl, that would be revolutionary.”

2.”Stop trying so hard to be someone you’re not.”

3. “Once you’re coming up with ways that you can’t do something, you’re not gonna do it.”

4. “Diversity is still a huge issue. We need more people of color in positions of power to green light content. If you want to see content of color, then it has to be in the hands of people of color.”

5. “It’s one thing when other African-American tries to threaten my race card, but when people outside of my ethnicity have the audacity to question how ‘down’ I am because of the bleak, stereotypical, picture pop culture has painted for me as a black woman? Unacceptable.”

6. “I’ll stick to finding the funny in the ordinary because my life is pretty ordinary and so are the lives of my friends – and my friends are hilarious.”

7. “I’m rooting for everybody black!”

8. “The web presents an opportunity to showcase any character your sick mind desires. Want to create a cross-dressing, deaf/mute, corrupt politician who has a soft spot for saving children? Go for it!”

9. “Don’t misunderstand me; I don’t want to die alone, but spending quality time with myself 60 to 70 percent of the day is my idea of mecca.”

10. “As Ralph Ellison once posited, we’re invisible to them. We’re simply not on their radar. As long as the people who are in charge aren’t us, things will never change.”

11. “It all made sense: my shyness, all the times I was dismissed for not being “black enough,” my desire to reframe the images of black film and television, which I started to do when I created a series in college called Dorm Diaries, my inability to dance—these were all symptoms of my Awkward Blackness.”

12. “The advantages of black hair are infinite.”

13. “How hard is it to portray a three-dimensional woman of color on television or in film? I’m surrounded by them. They’re my friends. I talk to them every day. How come Hollywood won’t acknowledge us? Are we a joke to them? Now, having been in the industry for a couple of years, I’m not entirely sure it’s blatant racism, as I had once assumed. It’s more complicated than that.”

14. “Why don’t people understand that nobody wants to hear what they should have done when something has already happened?”

15. “For a long time, I defined myself by what I wasn’t… My life changed when I focused on what I was, what I was good at, what I liked most about myself and what made me stand out. Once I learned to like me more than others did, then I didn’t have to worry about being the funniest or the most popular or the prettiest. I was the best me and I only ever tried to be that.”

16. “If a company is only as good as its weakest employee, then what does that say about you and the job you hold?”

17. “I thrive on obstacles. If I’m told that it can’t be done, then I push harder.”

MUST READ: Why You Should Push Yourself Past the Point Where You Normally Stop

18. “The discussion of representation is one that has been repeated over and over again, and the solution has always been that it’s up to us to support, promote, and create the images that we want to see.”

19. “Black women aren’t bitter, they’re just tired of being expected to settle for less.”

20. “Stop making excuses; you’re the only one stopping you.”

21. “I was just kind of a yes woman…I kind of lost what i was trying to say in the process because I was trying to make what they wanted me to make and at the end of the day they want you to do you.”

22. ” Stop finding the ways that you can’t do something and find all the ways that you can and just go for it.”

23. “My confidence comes from doing what I love to be honest, like to be able to create something from the ground up and to be able to… kind of walk in your purpose is a great feeling.”

24. “If it makes sense for you to quit your job and… you’re 100% confident in what you’re doing then didn’t do it.”

25.” If you love something you’re gonna make time for it.”

26. “Who is to say what [black folks] do and don’t do? What we can and can’t do? The very definition of ‘blackness’ is as broad as that of ‘whiteness,’ yet we’re seemingly always trying to find a specific, limited definition. As CNN produces news specials about us and a white female rapper feels culturally dignified to use the N-word, our collective grasp of ‘blackness’ is becoming more and more out of touch. To quote the gentleman at the end of the trailer, [for “Black Folk Don’t,] ‘Black folk don’t necessarily agree with each other about what being black is.’ And, that’s not a bad thing.”

27. “Embrace who you are now and embrace what makes your different.”

28. “If people don’t like you for who you are then those people aren’t meant to be in your life. You don’t want them there anyway.”

29. “Stop trying to impress people by being someone you’re not.”

30. “There’s so much creativity in brokeness. Brokeness will have you making it work.”

31. “Normally I don’t tell people about the projects that I want to do… some people have a tendency to be like “ah, you should do this” or discourage you from doing it and I would get in my own head.”

32. “I never really had to put much thought into my race, and neither did anybody else. I knew I was black. I knew there was a history that accompanied my skin color, and my parents taught me to be proud of it. End of story.”

33. “It’s a bit cliche, but you can’t go wrong by writing what you know. Even if you’re a horrible writer, your own knowledge and experience is unrivaled. Nobody knows what you know like you know what you know. The way you see things is pretty unique.”

34. “I found that every time I asked for permission the answer tended to be no, so I had to make my own yeses.”

When did you first learn about Issa Rae? What was your first impression and why?