Aasif Mandvi Quotes

If you don't acknowledge differences, it's as bad as stereotyping or reducing someone.

Indian culture is essentially much more of a we culture. It's a communal culture where you do what's best for the community - you procreate.

We are Muslims. My father would pawn off his Muslim in-laws as Hindus just so that he could get free pancakes.

Voter fraud does just barely exist, while racism, according to the Supreme Court, is a thing of the past.

If you choose to be a Muslim then you believe that it is on some level wrong to show the image of the Prophet Muhammad.

I thought [when I was 16] my days were just going to be spent hanging out on a beach and my girlfriend was going to be Miss Teen USA and my best friend will be a dolphin.

You can get samosas in any pub in England today, pretty much. So, "Gunga Din" has come back.

In America, you have this kind of individualism and in the West, essentially, you have this individualism - this idea of my own personal fulfillment.

From my parent's generation the idea was not that marriage was about some kind of idealized, romantic love. It was a partnership. It's about creating family. It's about creating offspring.

I said we are Ghodratis and there's nothing that Ghodratis like more than a bargain.

It is ironic that it doesn't matter how successful I am in any other capacity. Ultimately, my parents marker is do you have a wife? And do you have children?

I think family dynamics are definitely very interesting. And in my case my sister did get married. She gave my parents a grandchild.

Comedy can reach many more people than, say, a serious lecture on the topic. And comedy might just be the access point to reach people who want to be entertained and also learn something.

Statistically there is enough voter fraud to sway zero elections.

Paki- bashing was kind of this term that was used in general to beat up anyone that was from the Indian subcontinent.

For anybody who's ever been on the other end of, like, racial violence logic is not something that can be used.

Because to Americans, Chechnya might as well be a suburb of Narnia.

I was a fan of "The Daily Show" I watched it,I never imagined being on it, but I figured I would just go down there and do my best Stephen Colbert impression.

Samantha Bee said to me when I first started on the "Daily Show", she was like no - there is no - the only way you'll learn this job is by doing this job.

I don't want to tell people what they should think.

When my family decided to leave England I could not have been happier. I was sort of like - America seemed like the land of opportunity and, you know, it was Hollywood to me.

I grew up on American pop culture so everything that I fantasized about to get out of this sort of humdrum world of Bradford was about America. So when we decided to move there I was on the plane.

North Carolina precinct chairman and GOP executive committee member Don Yelton thinks his state's new voting restrictions are just fine.

Of course the law's not racist.

I think you had the GOP down there in North Carolina reaching out to African-American voters and this guy coming on television and using the N-word and saying what Don Yelton said.

The idea that I had anything to do with speaking about Islam or about the Muslim world was just absurd to my family. ... I hadn't been to the mosque in like 10 years.

I've always said I'm the worst representative of Muslim-Americans that's ever existed, because I've been inside more bars than mosques.

When you're brown and Indian, you get offered a lot of doctor roles.

People lament that there's no roles being written for South Asian or Muslim characters. But their parents don't want their children to go into the entertainment field. You don't get it both ways.

It's an organic thing that I try not to analyze too much, because I worry that it will go away.

England has an interesting relationship with the Indian subcontinent because the years of colonization and the history between the two places.

An artist's job is simply to take the mirror in front of your face and hold it there. It's not to give you any answers. It is simply to take that mirror and point it at you.

Now the bigots have to get creative. Good luck coming up with slurs for Chechens. Go back where you came from, Ushanka head.

The experience of being on a show that is very much in the center of popular culture is exciting. You really feel like you're reaching people.

I was born in India - but never really lived there.

I'm not really a food connoisseur.

I mean, but obviously, in people's eyes, it still - it can still link Islam to terrorism. I mean, why does it make a difference that they're white?

I'm Muslim the way many of my Jewish friends are Jewish: I avoid pork, and I take the big holidays off.

So I had this completely unrealistic idea of what America was — but I wanted to be there.

In Britain, you never get away from the fact that you're a foreigner. In the U.S., the view is it doesn't matter where you come from.

The artist never really has any control over the impact of his work. If he starts thinking about the impact of his work, then he becomes a lesser artist.

Traditional television as we have known it will make love to the Internet and have a child. That child will be the future. It's already happening, and it's hot!

I know the Gospel according to Mark better than I know any sura in the Quran.

I think politicians and comedians have a lot in common. One is a group of approval-seeking narcissists who will say and do anything to be liked... and comedians are always talking about politics.

Re-colonizing it and sort of reverse-colonizing it to the point that today the national dish of Great Britain is Chicken Tikka Masala.

Religion is so much more than the god you pray to. The religion that you associate with, it's culture, it is family, it is background. That is something that I have always grown up with.