Comedy comes from tragedy, and being Iranian in America from 1979 on had been quite tragic. In stand-up comedy, I was able to take the reality and exaggerate it.
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I remember I was in a San Francisco nightclub, and I started talking to some girl, and it was like, 'Hey, what's going on, what's your name?' You know, 'Where are you from?' I go, 'I'm from Iran.' And literally, she just looked at me and walked away.
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My mom was like, 'Get your law degree first, become a lawyer, and then you can tell jokes on the weekends. You can be a lawyer and just throw jokes into your presentations.' Now she's like, 'Listen, you need to come up with new material.' All of a sudden, my mom's a critic.
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As a Middle Eastern male, when you're in a Chuck Norris movie of the week, you know you're going to die.
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I really love D.C.; it's one of my favorite places to perform. I always say when I come here, I feel like my IQ increases by 20 points.
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If you come from a place of love, and you're not saying, 'I'm better than you,' that's one thing that allows you to talk about different ethnicities. It's almost like laughing with each other.
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Every time I see Trump on TV these days, I'm waiting for him to burst out, 'Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!' That would make sense to me - that this has all been one long 'Saturday Night Live' sketch.
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Trump doesn't go a day without worrying me. It seems like every day there's something new.
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I've made enough jokes about Iran's leadership that I'm sure if I showed up that I would get a nice escort - to the main prison - and then I could do a show there.
