“I never had good grades until I dropped out of religion. And then sudd...” — Ari Shaffir Quote

I never had good grades until I dropped out of religion. And then suddenly, my grades went up.

I grew up so conservative. I grew up as an orthodox Jew.

Early on, I had a girlfriend come see me, and she was like, 'Yeah, it was good, but you were funny at a dining hall at the University of Maryland.' That's when I realized I was contrived. I was reciting jokes. So I really worked on - no matter what - sounding like I was just talking to the people.

I've fallen asleep at red lights before. Not like passed out, but like I've put the parking break on and reclined my seat and taken a nap.

Leonard Cohen kept his Jew name. He's so cool. It's too bad he died.

Mind you, the limelight exists anywhere in the world. When you're not in the U.K., it can be as active somewhere else in the world, and for me, that's more or less been the case, so I never dropped out of the limelight in that sense.

What about the hero of The House on the Strand? What did it mean when he dropped the telephone at the end of the book? I don't really know, but I rather think he was going to be paralysed for life. Don't you?

I hope that when people see my body of work, they will say, 'That brother dropped it for real on us, even at the expense of his own image.'

I had dropped out of Memphis State University after two years because I felt the real world was too exciting.