Aziz Ansari Quotes

I'll never have a wedding. I don't want to marry just to do what everybody else is doing.

I got the 'I don't want the normal job' bug. At home, we have countless career advisors who would tell us to work in department stores and stay below the bar and not overreach our grasp. I didn't believe any of them.

The vast majority of kids in my school went on to college. That's just what you did. And I remember feeling like, 'No, I'm not doing that.' The idea that college was next, that it was a given, meant it was of no interest to me. So I didn't go.

Not a lot of people take advantage of that opportunity of being different. A lot of kids that are highly touted coming out of high school, like, doing the traditional thing and going to the blue bloods and all that, but I was always different growing up.

The outside wold pressures you into a mold, but if you don't accept that - you gamble with life. Call it gambling.

I like being the odd one out in L.A. Because if you conform, you become something you hate. I love being the odd one out. It's not about 'Look at me! Look at me!' It's about really becoming someone else.

With a small town mentality, you make a decision very early on as to whether you are going to do everything by the book or just go your own way and not care.

You're not allowed to be an eccentric in the world, you have to fit it.

You're made aware of what the industry is and what you need to conform to; I don't fit that, and I'm never going to.

In society, we have these unspoken rules of conduct, these 'shoulds.' Even though we pride ourselves on being a democracy, there are all these ways we say you 'should' behave. But what if you're living your life by the 'shoulds' and you're not really living your life?

Some days, I think maybe we should try and be a little more conventional, but every time I try, I fail, so I'm learning to not even entertain that thought anymore.

I always wanted to go against hat grain because it was too restricting.

I'm tired of living the vanilla, non-offensive life. I think that's a really sad way to spend my life, and I lived it like that because that's what I was brought up in, taught to not rock the ship.

I don't want to get married - I've been there and done that. So I know what I'm talking about when I say that. And for everybody has a different path - find out your path! And if you want to do it, don't let people make you feel inadequate because you wanted to do something that's different.

Our modern ideas of 'functioning' through things are really quite inhuman. We have this idea that no matter what is going on we still have to color between the lines, act normal.

People want you to be ordinary.

When you leave here today and commence the next stage of your life, you can follow someone else's script, try to make choices that will make other people happy, avoid discomfort, do what is expected, and copy the status quo. Or you can look at all that you have accomplished today and use it as fuel to venture forth and write your own story. If you do, amazing things will take shape.

People who follow all the rules and chase every trend tend to get forgotten - they look great, but they're not as memorable.

I just don't fit into the box.

You were once wild here. Don't let them tame you.

I have always been interested in people who live outside of the fabric of the norm.

I refused to conform to an image that a lot of people thought a president's brother should adopt.

We must overcome the notion that we must be regular... it robs you of the chance to be extraordinary and leads you to the mediocre.

I did art; I made furniture. I didn't want to be a cliche - the Beatle's son who became a musician.

It is human nature to instinctively rebel at obscurity or ordinariness.