Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" Stand-up is successful if they laugh. It's unsuccessful if they don't laugh. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Laugh
Unsuccessful
Successful
Related Quotes:
" 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
Violence
School
Mom
" I had this very strict rule when I began auditioning that I wasn't gonna do a thicker accent, because it was like, 'I can't tell if it's supposed to be funny because he talks funny.' And now I feel like there are certain characters that I could play that could involve doing a thicker accent, as long as it's specific to that character. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Funny
Doing
Character
" I don't go, 'It is now time to change Americans' perception of Muslims. It's going to be a long day.' I think you just try to be unique and try to be yourself, and if something good comes of that, then great. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Change
Day
Yourself
" 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
Theory
Big
Daily
" I started doing standup because of Hugh Grant's best-man speech in 'Four Weddings,' which is basically a standup routine. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Routine
Started
Doing
" A lot of times, it seems like social media has devolved into people just yelling at each other and not really conversing. "
Kumail Nanjiani
People
Like
Just
" 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
Year
Loved
Over
" 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
Run
Exercise
Hurt
" I started a podcast about 'X-Files' and ended up on it. Then I started a podcast about video games, and I'm in the new 'Mass Effect' game. I have to pick the stuff I love and do a podcast on it. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Love
Video Games
Game
" Honestly, I would love to be friends with Fox Mulder on 'The X-Files.' That's almost a little too obvious, but that would be my answer. I'd love to hang out with him. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Hang
Love
Answer
" 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
You
Everyone
Game
" I know what is funny coming out of my mouth and what is not funny coming out of my mouth. You have to figure out, What is the joke that I can do that nobody else can do? "
Kumail Nanjiani
Mouth
Funny
Nobody
" I've always played some version of a nerdy guy or something like that. I mean, one of my story lines on 'Silicon Valley' is that I am very bad with women! "
Kumail Nanjiani
Story
Women
Bad
" 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
Nobody
News
You
" I just hope that there's a market for somebody who looks like me as the lead of a rom-com, you know? "
Kumail Nanjiani
Looks
Like
Know
" 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' is one of my favorite movies, and I laugh all the time, and I cry during the one funeral. But I'll say that 'Monsters, Inc.' is a movie that really gets me super-emotional. Especially the ending. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Me
Cry
Ending
" Nobody really knows what they're doing. Some are just better at pretending like they do. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Pretending
Nobody
Like
" I think, you know, a lot of the business of comedy is taking your personal experiences and making them relatable to other people. "
Kumail Nanjiani
People
Know
You
" I would say I try to make my comedy really personal. I try to tell stories that happened to me, experiences from my life. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Comedy
My Life
Say
" I'm still trying to figure out how to have an adult relationship with my parents. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Relationship
Parents
Out
" The world is getting smaller. And people are bumping up against people from different parts of the world with very different points of view. The challenge of our time is going to be, how do you allow other points of view to exist within what you traditionally see as your world? "
Kumail Nanjiani
Challenge
Time
View
" One of my favorite comedies is 'Shaun of the Dead.' "
Kumail Nanjiani
Comedies
Dead
Favorite
" You can go slow. Allow your dreams and goals to change, but live an intentional life. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Change
You
Live
" 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
You
Time
Regret
" A lot of people say video games can be stifling. Older people say, 'We had to go outside, and we had to make up stories!' For me, video games broadened my horizons. Playing 'Golden Axe,' I was those characters. I imagined myself being in that world, so honestly, it was a really good thing. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Me
Good
Say
" 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
Interesting
Think
People
" 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
Know
Play
You
" I always felt that it was never the duty of a person to really stand up for their gender or their race or anything like that - I always felt that was a personal choice. But I do feel now that maybe my opinion is evolving or changing a little bit. "
Kumail Nanjiani
Stand
Stand Up
Choice
" I'll tell you, nobody was more excited than me, in the entire world, that there is a 'Silicon Valley' Funko set. "
Kumail Nanjiani
World
Me
Nobody
" 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
Will
Go
Humanity