Words matter. These are the best Hasan Minhaj Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Whoever has the best take is what matters. My challenge is finding the best take, and it’ll always be that.
Dick Gregory and Richard Pryor laid the groundwork for us as Indian-Americans. How can we add our story to their groundwork is the question.
I had been cut from the basketball team every year. But I was like, ‘I can turn it around! Michael Jordan made it!’ You see it a lot of times – you’ll have an athlete that you love, and then they’ll be like, ‘I also want to rap,’ and you’re like, ‘Don’t do that.’ I was that kid.
A lot of times, especially when it comes to political debates, people get caught up in esoteric statistics. So the realest thing I can do that has nothing to do with numbers is tell you my personal experience.
I went to college during the Kazaa/Napster era, and we had free Internet, which was a huge deal. People were just downloading all of everything.
I call my style Classic Americana Swag. I do my vibe, and I’ll throw in a cool sneaker here or there, a pair of Js.
In high school, I didn’t know what comedy was, but I was involved in speech and debate and public speaking.
Donald Trump is an extremist leader who came out of nowhere. He’s self-financed, recruits through social media, attracts his followers with a radical ideology to take over the world, and is actively trying to promote a war between Islam and the West.
Donald Trump is liar-in-chief.
Every time a U.S.A. Today slides underneath my door, it’s like they’re saying, ‘Hey, you’re not that smart, right?’
Growing up in the States, there’s this part of me that’s like, man, I’m Indian. Like, this is where I belong. And as soon as I got to India, and I had to go to the bathroom in some places, I was, like, ‘Man – I am American.’
If you want a great replacement, like, who can follow Barack and still have that swag, that charisma, that charm and be historic – I think it would be Tina Fey for president.
I feel like every conversation with my father is like an M. Night Shyamalan movie; 90 minutes of build-up to no payoff.
I had a huge Indian wedding, and I did it for my wife, and I did it for my white friends.
The movies ‘Dope’ and ‘Straight Outta Compton’ blew me away. I love seeing directors and writers of color make amazing slices of pop culture.
My favorite comedians are just presenting an argument, and they’re doing it in a funny way.
A lot of people in the media say that Donald Trump goes golfing too much, which raises a very important question: Why do you care? Do you want to know what he’s not doing when he’s golfing? Being president. Let the man putt-putt!
Trump is inadvertently forcing us to show him how great this country truly is – that we are better together than we are divided.
I think the way comedy is represented on screen is it’s either all fart jokes – and it’s just laughter for the sake of laughter – or it’s one of those things where it’s just kind of very preachy, very heavy-handed.
‘CNN Tonight’ should just be called ‘Wait a second! Now hold on! Stop yelling at each!’ with Don Lemon.
Being healthy is the crown that only the sick can see. A lot of times, we take it for granted.
‘Vice News’ is cool because they’ll just send your local barista to go talk to the head of ISIS.
I was actually a really sort of nervous, shy kid. In high school, it was one of those things where I wasn’t popular or a loser; I just don’t think many people really knew who I was.
Every time Trump goes golfing, the headline should read, ‘Trump Goes Golfing. Apocalypse Delayed.’
This first-generation narrative keeps happening over and over and over again, whether it was Irish or Jewish or our community, South Asians, Japanese-Americans, Mexican-Americans. We’ve all gone through this sort of bridge, and it will continue to happen.
The day-to-day microaggressions that we all face, yeah, you have to let some stuff slide, or you go, ‘I gotta keep moving; there’s bigger fish to fry.’ It’s something that I still deal with. But I’ve tried to have the audacity of equality and to follow my heart in those moments where I feel like something is wrong.
Personal narrative is one of the few things where people don’t get caught up in fighting over esoteric rhetoric.
I can’t emphasize how important free speech is to a liberal and free democracy.
As satirists, we get to stand on the sidelines of life and comment on what’s happening.
As a Muslim, I like to watch Fox News for the same reason I like to play ‘Call of Duty.’ Sometimes, I like to turn my brain off and watch strangers insult my family and heritage.
When you can tailor your act, you want it to be about yourself but also about the people in the room and the experience you guys are having in that moment; it is really a special thing.
My mom worked at the VA for years, so any time I can do anything to help, it’s a must.
‘Shantaram’ is fantastic. An Australian prisoner escapes & joins the mafia in India? Sign me up. I love stuff that is based on true stories.
I feel like we have so much to add to this book called the American Dream, and I want to add our chapter to it. I want to talk about what it means to be brown American and this concept of what I feel is the New Brown America.
I’ve found the 90-10 rule to be pretty true: 90 percent of what I come up with and write down is kinda ‘eh,’ and then somehow, someway, 10 percent of it happens to work out really great in my act.
When you immerse yourself in a community, you tend to rise in that community.
I grew up in a pretty strict household in the sense that we just didn’t have cable, so I wasn’t familiar with what stand-up comedy was. I remember telling my friends that I thought stand-up comedy was like the thing that happened before the episode of ‘Seinfeld.’
You can hear my opinion on various subjects, but telling my story is the most authentic thing I can do. There’s nothing more powerful I can share with an audience.
I exist in this hyphen. I’m an Indian-American-Muslim kid, but am I more Indian, or am I more American? What part of my identity am I?
When you grow up as a minority in a majority culture, a lot of times, you’re just trying to fit in.
Racism has a very quick expiration date when exposed to actual contact with people.
Funny and sad are two sides of the same coin. I think that most comedians are able to tap into deep subject matter.
My biggest inspiration is black America and what they’ve done in the arts. I have always felt like an outsider in America, and what black Americans have done to add their chapter to this book called the American dream, and to be so unapologetic and true, and have added so much to art and culture in the world.
I just hope I reach out to people and connect to people in such a way that they continue to support what I do.
I wanted to be Atticus Finch.
