Hasan Minhaj

“I was good at speech and debate and academics. I should've stayed in my lane, but I kept trying out for the basketball team. I thought I would make the N.B.A.”

“I love air conditioning and Starbucks.”

“I think perspective is a necessary, amazing thing.”

“I'm just an American citizen like everyone else and I'm not sitting at the power table in the room where it all happens.”

“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.”

“Every time Trump goes golfing, the headline should read, 'Trump Goes Golfing. Apocalypse Delayed.'”

“J. Cole's 2014 'Forrest Hills Drive.' The album, artwork, and director of that album was a huge influence on the visuals for 'Homecoming King.'”

“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...”

“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....”

“My dad's from that generation like a lot of immigrants where he feels like if you come to this country, you pay this thing like the American dream tax: like you're going to endure some racis...”

“Bananas are my go-to breakfast.”

“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...”

“I'm a huge fan of Beverly Cleary.”

“One of the biggest things immigrant kids oftentimes feel is this big disparity between our parents and us. And our parents are staunch pragmatists, and I consider myself to be an optimist.”

“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 boo...”

“I like to have straight-up black coffee, but when you get it, sometimes you'll burn your tongue, or it spills on your hands, and you get third degree burns. I happen to be the kind of human...”

“The movies 'Dope' and 'Straight Outta Compton' blew me away. I love seeing directors and writers of color make amazing slices of pop culture.”

“The traditional Hollywood system is pretty rigid, but the film scene in, say, South Africa is booming with a lot of possibilities. If you have the cameras and reasonable capital, you can put...”

“I've learned to start from a really sound argument, boil down the essence of what you're trying to say, then build your humor around that, rather than starting with, 'This sounds funny,' and...”

“Sean Spicer gives press briefings like someone is going through his browser history while he watches.”