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" I'm from a family of doctors, and I think they really wanted me to be a doctor. I even sort of assumed I would be a doctor. "

Kumail Nanjiani

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" One of my favorite comedies is 'Shaun of the Dead.' "

Kumail Nanjiani

" You can get stuck in the trap of reading your YouTube comments all the time. Sometimes I regret it. Not everyone is going to love you. And for some reason, stand-up has this thing where everyone thinks they can do it. So everyone thinks they're an expert. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I know a lot of brown actors who play terrorists because they're physically intimidating. For me, it was like, 'O.K., you'll be the nerd.' So I've played the nerd. I've played food-delivery guys. But I always tried to find something in the characters so that they weren't just defined by what they looked like. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" The worst job I ever had was an office job that I had for six years, and that's nothing against the people who I was surrounded by, because they were wonderful people. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I used to like to come up with inventions because I hated working so much when I had my day job. I thought, 'All I need is a great idea, and I'm out of here.' "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I loved the Oscars, and I had V.H.S. tapes for the Oscars, and I used to watch them over and over. There was probably one year where I watched it, like, 20 times or something. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I didn't know if I could be funny on stage or write a joke. But I saw that there are no rules. If you're funny offstage, you can figure out a way to be funny onstage. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" The plan was always to come to America, because Pakistan's a scary place. They don't have religious freedom. It's very poor, and there's a lot of violence and corruption. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" Nobody really knows what they're doing. Some are just better at pretending like they do. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" Because of the Internet, you're sort of forced to deal with people from very different backgrounds and beliefs. It's a great challenge of our time, and depending on when you ask me, I feel optimistic or pessimistic about it. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" It happens to people. People ruin things they love! I'm sure the guy who played Jar Jar Binks loved 'Star Wars.' "

Kumail Nanjiani

" Wikipedia is kind of weird. I feel it's lame to put up my own page, but I desperately want someone else to do it. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" There was one week where I got mistaken for Hasan Minhaj, who is on 'The Daily Show;' Kunal Nayyar, who's on 'Big Bang Theory;' and Karan Soni of 'Ghostbusters.' This was one week. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I thought, from watching TV and stuff, that America was one place. They only show you L.A. and New York. They don't warn you about Iowa. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I've found that the common humanity of people is the most relatable thing, and even if your stories are very specific about a different place, if you have a relatable core of humanity, people will go along with it. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I love, love, love the street-cart food. Gyros are like a meat-flavored fruit roll-up. A meat roll-up. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I don't want to generalize, but the target audience for a lot of the YouTube people is fairly young - under the age of 16. You still want to know what those people are watching, because I think it's interesting, but sometimes it just makes you feel old. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" Living in Pakistan, you didn't have a sense of how huge and varied America was geographically. I had visited once. I thought of it as this crazy, happy, exciting place where everybody's rich, and there's stuff everywhere. Compared to Pakistan, it's not untrue. Compared to Pakistan, the streets are paved with gold. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I'd love to be in action movies. I've been trying to convince people. I don't think it's anything physical holding me back. I think it's a general vibe thing that's holding me back. I don't project action confidence, maybe. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" When I was studying comedy in Chicago, it wasn't long after 9/11. There were a lot Middle Eastern comedians who were doing bits about hailing cabs and being terrorists. So the first two years, I didn't do any of that because I wanted to separate myself from those guys. But race is a big part of who I am, and it should be a big part of my comedy. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" My mom told us never to reveal that we were Shia in school. You would find out that some other kid was Shiite, and you would whisper, 'Hey,' or you would see someone at the mosque, and you'd be like, 'Hey, that kid's Shiite!' There was a lot of tension, a lot of violence in Karachi between Shiites and Sunnis. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" My parents aren't the demographic for a lot of things I do. If I did a stand-up show, and I saw 62-year-old Pakistanis in the crowd, I'd be like, 'I'm gonna bomb.' "

Kumail Nanjiani

" Populate your life with people different from you. Once you leave school, you get to choose the kinds of people you're going to be around rather than forced to be around them. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I never really got into game shows. The easiest one is 'Wheel Of Fortune' because you just have to know words, and for the most part everyone knows words. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I still don't have a real appreciation for music because I didn't really start listening to it until my 20s. My wife knows everything about music, and I try and get her to educate me, but it's just not part of my DNA. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" Most people don't really do too many things because they're afraid they'll fail. There are people failing all the time, all around you. And nobody is going to notice your failure. Your failure is not going to be so spectacular that people write news stories about it. Your failure will be boring. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I have a reward-and-punishment system: If I have done this much work, then I can play video games this long. It gives my day structure. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I remember my jaw would hurt because I wasn't used to speaking English all the time. Like how, even if you exercise, you'll play kickball one day, and then you're like, 'Wait, I run, but new places are hurting because I don't use my muscles this way.' My mouth was not used to making these sounds. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" I'm a massive rom-com head! Like, every rom-com in the '90s and early 2000s, I've watched. "

Kumail Nanjiani

" TV requires a lot more patience. No one's ever like, 'I gotta get up at 5 A.M. and write my stand-up!' It's an easy life. With 'Silicon Valley,' it's long hours and very unglamorous. "

Kumail Nanjiani