“You can get stuck in the trap of reading your YouTube comments all the...” — Kumail Nanjiani Quote

You can get stuck in the trap of reading your YouTube comments all the time. Sometimes I regret it. Not everyone is going to love you. And for some reason, stand-up has this thing where everyone thinks they can do it. So everyone thinks they're an expert.

I grew up watching 'Ghostbusters' and 'Knight Rider' and Hot Wheels commercials. When I got to college, having never set foot in America, I knew more American pop-culture references than my friends did.

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 want to be so famous that I'm the pop-culture reference that people would make to try and be racist to me. So I'd be walking down the street, and someone would be, like, 'Hey, look at this Kumail Nanjiani.'

I knew when I shot the 'She Keeps Me Warm' video that the comments were not going to be homophobic... that they would be about fat-shaming. I'm a large girl making out with somebody. I knew just that sheer fact would set people off.

You don't know what you need when you're a young writer. You can get small slivers of critical input, advice, comments, but if you're deep in the perplexity of your own process, as you should be, sorting it out in your own way, nothing is going to guide you more than small gestures of encouragement.

I go through my comments sometimes, and I'll just take snapshots of the terrible ones and send them to my friends. I know it's horrible, but they actually make me laugh. They make my day.

I guess I make a lot of stupid comments that are, like, pretty irrelevant to a lot of things.