Jordan Peele is an actor, director, writer, and comedian, best known for the sketch series Key & Peele and his hit horror films Get Out and Us.

Peele was born to a white mother and a black father, and he admits that being biracial often made him feel like an outsider. He first experienced that when he was only six years old – when given a standardized test and asked about his race, he just checked the “other” box.

Peele began his career in 2003 as a comedian, during MAD TV‘s ninth season. There, he made a big impression by impersonating various celebrities such as 50 Cent, Ja Rule, James Brown, Montel Williams, Morgan Freeman, and Forest Whitaker. He later teamed up with his partner-in-comedy, Keegan-Michael Key to co-create, write, and star in their own Comedy Central series. Key & Peele went on to win two Emmys.

While Peele used to make hilarious skits, it appears that now he loves the feeling of getting his audience to shudder. He made his directorial debut with the horror film Get Out — one of the most profitable films of 2017 — which also earned him an Oscar. So it’s hardly a surprise that his second horror movie, Us, has been a box office hit and critically acclaimed.

Here are 16 Jordan Peele quotes on creativity and diversity.

I didn’t fit in the boxes that the world was telling me to fit in.

A greater truth that I think we are faced with on a day-to-day basis as minorities is: We are the color of skin first and people second.

I was raised that emotion was a good thing.

Sometimes blessings come in strange packages.

I love biting off more than I can chew and figuring it out.

The power of story is greater than the power of conversation in a way.

I’ve noticed that the truth works… If you’re being yourself and you’re just using your own emotions, they can feel it. If you’re doing fake, they can feel it.

Like comedy, horror has an ability to provoke thought and further the conversation on real social issues in a very powerful way.

Part of what horror is, is taking risks and going somewhere that people think you’re not supposed to be able to go, in the name of expressing real-life fears.

How we act with each other really reveals our most animal instincts.

I’m obsessed with giving the audience something they don’t see coming.

I just think racism is within each and every one of us. It’s everyone’s responsibility to figure out how they deal with this kind of obsolete instinct.

We can convince ourselves to do things in conjunction with one another that we wouldn’t have been able to do as an individual.

What if the invading force that we are so afraid of has our face?

I’m a true believer in story. I think when you just tell people to think, people tend to get resistant and defensive and feel like you’re accusing them of not thinking.

We need to break boundaries, so every time I feel like, ‘Oh snap, oh my God, I don’t know how this is gonna be received,’ I also feel this validation, like, ‘All the greats, all my favorites have felt this.’