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.”

“When I started working on 'Michael And Michael,' it was my life for three to four months, and then suddenly it's gone.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I moved to New York first and was really apprehensive about moving to L.A., but I really, really like it.”

“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.”

“I was actually looking at the poster for 'Tarzan,' and I was thinking how abs look so different now. These are not your grandma's abs. They go so deep and so sharp now.”

“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.”

“I started doing standup because of Hugh Grant's best-man speech in 'Four Weddings,' which is basically a standup routine.”

“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!”

“Studio execs were like, ''Lord of the Rings!' People want to see sword-and-dragon-type things!' No, people just want to see great stories. Hollywood always takes the wrong lesson from successes.”

“My parents don't really understand my career. They don't really bring it up that much.”

“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.”

“I would say I try to make my comedy really personal. I try to tell stories that happened to me, experiences from my life.”

“I think, you know, a lot of the business of comedy is taking your personal experiences and making them relatable to other people.”

“In popular culture, there isn't any other conception of Islam and Muslims other than what you see on the news... When you go to a theme park, you see Muslims riding roller coasters and eating ice cream. Why doesn't anybody think of those Muslims when they think of Muslims?”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.'”