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.
- Hasan Minhaj
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 being who doesn't want to sue coffee companies for money, so I just say, 'Hey, can you give me some coffee, but can you also give me like, eight ice cubes.'
- Hasan Minhaj
To show that a comedian on stage in India talking about sanitation or in South Africa talking about HIV and AIDS awareness, if you follow the joke into their lives, you can see that, like, oh, these things aren't just contrived in joke books. This is real life. I think the best comedians have that bravery and courage to say, Oh, this is what it is.
- Hasan Minhaj
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 racism, and if it doesn't cost you your life, well hey, you lucked out. Pay it; there you go, Uncle Sam. I was born here, so I actually had the audacity of equality.
- Hasan Minhaj
My mom works at the VA; she's been working at the VA for 15 plus years, and yet she's helping so many veterans coming back from brown Muslim countries, and my mom treats them. It's this weird - sometimes I feel torn. It's this dual identity. I'm so proud to be American, and at the same time, I disagree with our foreign policy.
- Hasan Minhaj
One thing I found very interesting about comedians around the world was their knowledge of stuff outside of their own culture and comfort zone. That's not very common in the States. We produce our own soft power, which is pop culture, but we rarely try to absorb and learn information from other cultures and countries.
- Hasan Minhaj
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 your film in theatres next to 'Guardians of the Galaxy.' A great example of that was Kagiso Lediga's film 'Blitz Patrole.'
- Hasan Minhaj
Comedy is very disarming. It's a way to talk about things and still be light-hearted. And when it's done really well, you never see the strings, whereas when you watch an infomercial or a politician speaking, a lot of times you can see the strings, you can see what agenda they're trying to push.
- Hasan Minhaj
If it's just me on stage telling stories for, like, an hour, that's great. That's fine. But like a sandcastle on the beach, it gets washed away at night. It's so much more powerful if we can all share our narratives and doorstep moments and make us feel a little less alone. I'm just trying to use social media and new media as a way to capture that.
- Hasan Minhaj
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