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" The first acting part I ever got was a guest spot on 'Chicago Hope' playing a security guard. I thought, 'Oh, this is going to be cool.' But a little bit later, I got a vague part on this short-lived show called 'Marshall Law' with Arsenio Hall and Sammo Hung. It was a poor man's 'Rush Hour.' "

Maz Jobrani

Cool

Thought

Law

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" I tend not to make fun of religious groups anywhere I play. "

" As the weeks went on, I realized there was an important role comedy would play in healing the tragedies of September 11. Comedy can help people cope, and many people were coming to the clubs to laugh out the stress. "

" The way we censor in America is the dollar. That's who censors. "

" Your stereotypical L.A. Persian kids were not working at Sbarro pizza in the mall, but I was. "

" Trump doesn't go a day without worrying me. It seems like every day there's something new. "

Maz Jobrani

Without

New

" Every time I see Trump on TV these days, I'm waiting for him to burst out, 'Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!' That would make sense to me - that this has all been one long 'Saturday Night Live' sketch. "

Maz Jobrani

Waiting

New York

" Comedy comes from tragedy, and being Iranian in America from 1979 on had been quite tragic. In stand-up comedy, I was able to take the reality and exaggerate it. "

" I've basically grown up in America. Even if Iran were to change, I wouldn't see myself moving there. That feeling exists for my mother and people of her generation. They say, 'Hopefully, one day.' "

" Humor is always important. There are people who help us deal with difficulty or hardship; from the concentration camps to the court jester, there was a need for humor. As long as these kinds of things exist, with repressive regimes, you need it to deal with the weight of daily life. "

" I really love D.C.; it's one of my favorite places to perform. I always say when I come here, I feel like my IQ increases by 20 points. "

Maz Jobrani

Love

Places

" I am a political human being. I have - that's one of my interests. I studied political science in college. I was actually going to get my Ph.D. in poli-sci. And a lot of my material from early on in my career dealt with politics, so I've always considered myself as somebody who enjoys political humor. So I'm not going to stop. "

" A cultural thing that is funny to me is that every time I go out in D.C. after a show, all the nightclubs and restaurants are owned by Iranians and Afghans. It's funny to me how we lost our countries but we gained the nightlife. "

Maz Jobrani

Time

Funny

" I quickly came to realize that in the Middle East, God is God, and in the West, the sponsor is God - or, as I like to say, Tide detergent is God. "

" Part of what's great about America, and Canada as well, is that we can talk about our political leaders in public. "

" Be kind. It feels good. "

" I grew up in Northern California - Marin County, Tiburon. And it's interesting. It's a very rich place, but a lot of the affluent people are - they're not as showy. So, like, they might have, like, a Saab or a Volvo. And then here comes my dad from Iran. He buys a Rolls-Royce. "

Maz Jobrani

Place

Interesting

" When you have demonization of a group of people, it's easy to clump them all together and not understand them. "

" I've made enough jokes about Iran's leadership that I'm sure if I showed up that I would get a nice escort - to the main prison - and then I could do a show there. "

" Trump is good for comedy but bad for the world. "

" Any standup that you see who you go, 'Oh, wow, that guy's, you know, that guy's making it.' Inevitably, they've been doing it 10, 12 years - 10, 15 years. Because it takes time. "

Maz Jobrani

You

Know

" I'm not saying that I'm on some crusade to change people's minds. I'm just doing what I do. I'm a comedian, I'm trying to be funny... I think when they see a comedy show with an Iranian and an Egyptian and two Palestinians, I think they go, 'Oh wow, these guys are just like us.' "

" My mom was like, 'Get your law degree first, become a lawyer, and then you can tell jokes on the weekends. You can be a lawyer and just throw jokes into your presentations.' Now she's like, 'Listen, you need to come up with new material.' All of a sudden, my mom's a critic. "

" I played Li'l Abner and Batman in school plays; I wanted to be an actor to play all these different characters. "

" I remembered, like, when 'Not When My Daughter' came out, I'm serious, I think dating for Iranian men became a lot harder. Dude's name, Shahrokh - became Tony. Mehsud became Mike. "

Maz Jobrani

Men

Daughter

" Coming from L.A. to D.C., I'm always impressed that in D.C., people are doing the things that the people in L.A. are pretending to do. Whenever I'm in D.C., I ask people what they do, and they say, 'I'm with the agency, or I'm with State.' In L.A., I ran into a guy who said, 'I'm working on an audition for a guy who happens to be with an agency.' "

" Comedy can take you a lot further in getting your point across. People are entertained, and then, by being entertained, they get your point. "

" I've had people come up to me after the show and say, 'Why did you not make fun of Pakistan?' People are actually upset you didn't talk about them. "

" Iranians and Arabs aren't considered diversity because we still don't have minority status in America. There was a group of Middle Eastern actors trying to get SAG to recognize us as part of the diversity they should look out for, because we do represent a different point of view. When OscarsSoWhite happened, I felt part of that. "

" The fact is, the Middle East has been going crazy for 50, 60, 70 years. So it's not like, 'Oh, I need an ISIS joke.' "