Top 55 Romesh Ranganathan Quotes

Teaching is so solid and reliable, comedy is not.

I have Asian friends – second generation – and I am the worst in terms of being in touch with my heritage.

My obsession with hip-hop has given me an addiction to trainers, which are very much a young person’s game, and I am known to rock a full tracksuit, under the pretence that it’s more comfortable to travel in.

It is fair to say that I am generally very bad at keeping in touch – with everyone. When I read a text, my brain seems to think that I have replied to it, and so I am often genuinely surprised when people tell me I haven’t.

You can be good at comedy, which means you’ll be given spots, but beyond that it is luck that pushes you to the next level. There are loads of brilliant comedians who haven’t had the breaks, and plenty of average comedians who have.

Consuming art should involve investment and risk.

I have always told my family that I don’t want my birthday to be celebrated and that they shouldn’t get me anything, even though if they didn’t I’d probably write a standup routine about it.

I used to love the Wu-Tang Clan. They took my school by storm, by which I mean the three kids in my year who listened to hip-hop. I skipped lectures to go and buy their second album, ‘Forever’, and then rushed home to listen to it.

Some of the best comedy comes from squeezing humour from tragedy and struggle, but the main pursuit of comedy should be laughter.

My comedy career aside, I am a father of three, a husband, a son, a brother and a vegan.

I was terrible at sport at school. I was fat, which made things slightly tougher, but it also meant that people were encouraging to the point of patronising.

I realised I had an issue with my mobile phone use when a friend started explaining the virtues of the Fast 800 diet and, while still engaged in the conversation, I pulled out my phone and ordered the book before they had finished their sentence.

My parents are super westernized. My mom listens to western music, my dad was like a pub landlord so he properly embraced English life. But the truth is they both came from tiny villages in Sri Lanka.

Veganism is a point of contention all year round. So much so that many vegans cut themselves off from the rest of society, huddling together for warmth and smugness, and using online forums to vent their disgust at the morally corrupt dairy- and meat-eating savages who make up most of the populace.

Mum came to Crawley from Sri Lanka at 19 after marrying my dad. Later, Dad had financial problems and they split for a while.

I’ll play anything Mario- or Zelda-related, but Fortnite is one step beyond me. I don’t get anything from it but motion sickness and an increased sense of anxiety about how violent future generations are going to be.

There is a magical, unexplainable phenomenon that still occurs to this day where, however funny you think the material you’ve written is, as soon as you turn up to a gig to try it out, it becomes almost incoherent.

I’ve had a Hindu upbringing. There’s a lot about it I think is cool. Temples are amazing. It’s a nice vibe when people are praying. And there’s lots about it where I understand why they believe those things. But I’m not practising.

I thoroughly enjoy my children’s birthdays, despite the fact their parties are an apocalyptic mix of hall-booking, Nerf-gun-hiring, refreshment-organising and talking to parents whose names you’ve forgotten.

When I started doing stand-up, I resigned from my job as a maths teacher and, three days before I was due to leave, my dad passed away.

I’ve done bits where I’ve perhaps talked about my kids annoying me and you hope that the audience realise that you do actually love your children. You can still be a good parent and be frustrated by your kids.

I used to think that people just hate vegans; I have since discovered that everybody hates anyone who abstains from anything.

My life consists of intense focus on urgent areas of development, and then abandonment of that focus shortly afterwards.

I used to do standup about footballers; they are easy targets because they are traditionally seen as stupid.

Supermarkets and specialist suppliers will have you believe there are great substitutes for cheese. There are not. No vegan cheese tastes anything like decent cheese, and melting cheese might as well be alchemy as far as the vegan cheese industry is concerned.

Because let’s be clear about this: birthdays are for children. It’s the one day of the year where they get properly spoilt and are the centre of attention, and they get the presents they really, really want.

All of the most interesting people had a horrible time as kids. All the best rappers struggled.

I am not obliged to tackle racism wherever and whenever it occurs, nor am I qualified to do so.

My family is all obsessed with comedy. I grew up watching a lot of comedy in the house. I used to watch Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy with my dad. But my mom is more into slapstick stuff.

I strive for honesty because I think that’s where the funniest stuff comes from.

David Beckham is always seen as the thickest man on the planet, too daft to complete a jigsaw puzzle. But then you watch old footage of him playing and every time he plays a ball across the field, he’s intuitively working out the trajectory of the ball.

I worry about my children, actually. I’m trying to give them a decent upbringing but I sometimes worry that that means they’re going to be kind of mediocre adults. Like maybe I should throw them out for a bit and give them some adversity.

My childhood memories are filled with hugs and kisses from both my mum and dad. My mum has a thing about kissing you an odd number of times: if she kisses you once, all good, but if she kisses you twice, then you know another one has to follow and, weirdly, she tends to go for the forehead.

Announcing a diversity initiative, or making it a cause, exerts unwanted pressure.

I’ve always loved American stand-up. Richard Pryor is one of the main reasons I got into stand-up. After Pryor, I made my way through the other great American comics, then finally got into the British ones over here.

My wife and I have three boys, and it turns out this is the perfect number to ensure that you are never doing something that everybody wants to do.

Social media has exacerbated a trend whereby people speak with complete authority on every subject, regardless of how informed they are.

I loved stand-up, but I never thought you could do it as a job.

In the past, I have been guilty of returning from work with some parenting words of wisdom, ignoring the fact that my wife has been dealing with the situation for a while. The correct strategy at these times is to wind my mansplaining neck in.

I just write what I think is funny, or interesting, and hopefully everything else will take care of itself. There’s no strategy to anything.

I would not have succeeded as a comedian had I not had some hugely lucky breaks.

I did a gig as a standup when I was eight years old. I went on holiday with my family to this holiday camp and they had a talent competition and I entered as a standup.

My mum’s financial plan is: Romesh becomes a millionaire.

When you spend your day writing comedy, particularly with others, the discussion of jokes and how far to push things with a group of unoffendable colleagues means that your grasp of what is acceptable in normal conversation is often skewed.

I want to say things on stage that I wouldn’t have the guts to say in conversation.

I have never worried about having my finger on the pulse, because I consume music and cinema voraciously, and assumed that meant I would know all of the things my kids were into, even if I didn’t like them.

What I’m like with lack of sleep is that I let the devil in, so if I’m tired the slightest thing will put me into a bad place.

I don’t believe in make-or-break moments in your life. If you screw something up, it can knock you down, but that only means you’ll be better when you get back to where you were before.

In life, we mostly manage to walk around interacting with each other fairly politely. But as soon as we get into our cars, we morph into something out of ‘Mad Max’.

Usually, if I have a day to write, I will spend the first hour thinking about how I am going to structure my day. I will also spend time helping my kids to get ready for school. Then I spend an hour making and eating breakfast, because balanced nutrition has suddenly become very important.

People who are comfortable in their own skin I admire, but you don’t know what’s really going on. If you meet someone who says they nail being a human, they are as far away from nailing it as a human as you can possibly imagine.

The experience of watching other standups is either: 1) you see your mate doing standup and it’s really bad and you’re heartbroken, or 2) You see your mate doing really well and it’s heartbreaking.

I have long believed that success stories need a bit of balance. We only hear from people who risked it all, and found it paid off.