Quotes from Ramy Youssef

A lot of people want what I would call sci-fi; people want television to be what they think the world should look like. That is different than what I do.

My mom spent like a decade of her life living in Paris, and I grew up listening to a lot of French music as well as Arabic music.

There's a billion and a half Muslim experiences. All I can give you is my one weird, self-examining perspective.

The only thing I would tell my younger self is, 'Don't pay a lot of money for head shots.' There's always some dude in Brooklyn that's like, 'Dude, this is gonna get you the job.' And he convinces you you've got to pay $700. You don't! Your head shot doesn't matter!

Ramy' is based on a lot of personal things, and it's interesting to see how many people feel like it's their story. And how many people view it as this democratic thing that should represent them.

This is my point of view, and that's why I call the show 'Ramy'. I made the show that I would want to see. So it's only going to hit on certain things.

We're constantly rationalizing where we stand and our own code and dealing with, you know, how you can be the best version of yourself.

I was in school for a little bit at Rutgers for political science, but it was very loose.

I'm not trying to erase my culture or my faith, I'm trying to be the best version of myself, and it's really hard. I don't think I'm right, I don't claim to be correct, I'm just trying to figure it out and figure out a balance.

I just feel like the most important conversations I've had in my life have been at a diner counter.

My job is to show our humanity, and the only way to be leading with that sort of humanity is to lead with the problems that a family like this might be encountering and putting those on display.

I actually want to hold on to where I came from, and also I want to be at this bar in Brooklyn, even if I'm not drinking at all. What does that tension look like? It's less an attack on the parents and more an interrogation of personal guilt, personal responsibility. That's my internal dialogue.

What I would love for my 30s is to just not have expectations. I don't want to assume anything about my 30s based on my 20s other than just keeping the lessons I've learned, but in terms of what I think should happen with those lessons, I don't know.

All I had growing up was like 'Aladdin,' maybe I could be animated - or terrorist roles.

What I really like about stand-up is there's 100 people in a room, and you can just feel the pulse. It's very human.

I mean, the title of my show is my name. That's not because I was an established voice. It's because of a rising number of outlets, and an increased willingness to take risks. All the sudden, people like me are finding themselves in the position to make things.

There is a fine line between faith and confidence. Confidence has a self-reliance. Faith is really about giving in.

I love Narcy, he's such a good artist. I know him personally, he's a friend. He's of my generation - he puts out a lot of stuff through music that are themes I like to hit on in my writing and comedy.

Stand-up is cool. In stand-up, you get to learn about yourself if you do it from a thoughtful place.

And for me, I reached the point where I know the way I live my life is not conventional, and so I feel like whatever relationship I do end up in is also not going to be conventional. So I don't operate from feeling like I have to be with someone who is Muslim, or the other way around.

I grew up with so much of the identity of being Muslim and being Arab tied around politics.

I think that a lot of the stories I would see was kids who are first-generation immigrants, watching them try to rip themselves from their family and their faith and kind of erase. I hadn't really seen anything where someone's trying to reconcile the two.

I'm getting in front of real, diverse audiences every night that I can, and I'm trying to make things from an angle where it's not the only thing I'm hanging my hat on.

I think that religious culture and the industry of religion pretty much deserves most of the heat that it gets.